#in some ways yes but sometimes the circumstances are so out of the parents control and this is a very punitive framework

[natandacat]

The notes are so funny bc here are the 'downsides of being an only child' that are literally not unique to being an only child and more of a parenting/situational thing really:

- "It's lonely!/Siblings are built-in friends!" One of my brothers played with me out of a sense of necessity because we were not allowed to be with other kids and he deeply resented me for that, which made for a bad relationship and me being extremely alone all the time anyway. I'd rather have skipped the hatred (on his part) and heart break (on mine) and gone directly to playing alone. I have literally never had an intimate conversation with any of my 3 brothers (except literally One time with one of them) but I've had countless of horrid fights (with me or witnessed). Hell is other people, etc.

- "All the attention is suffocating!" I was monitored 24/7 and pretty much never left alone, up to a point where my bathroom time was also monitored. My brother actively and voluntarily participated in the monitoring at some points.

- "You get unconditional support as an adult!" I've been in a lot of trouble since I was 17 and they've never helped, not materially or emotionally.

-"You have more people to build happy memories with!" My brother got married 3 days before I was back in the country (he set the date way after I had bought my plane tickets and also he actively chose to hide it from me) and still blames me for being upset because "it was a ceremony for closed loved ones only anyway" (I guess I wasn't counted!). That's just the most egregious examples in a long, long list.

I get grass is greener ect but what bothers me is that it reinforces the idea that sibling relationships are *always* a net positive, in a very "nuclear family is sacred" way

Like I'm not venting for the sake of it, I've been no contact for 4 years and it's great, I'm just frustrated that it's so goddamn hard to get people to acknowledge sibling abuse, or even get them to *not* perform shocked incredulity at the idea. Especially on tumblr, THE website where people talk about parental abuse all the time and understand that sometimes you really cannot salvage the relationship and it truly is detrimental

All I'm saying is stop assuming that things would be better with a sibling around. You don't know that! Believe me, things could be so much worse with a sibling around.

The good news is you get to choose your friends and siblings as an adult! :) Life can be sweet not matter who your nuclear family is! You're not a failure for not experiencing the hegemonic ideal of siblinghood! It's okay!

[mariequitecontrary]

Can I have a tarot reading from you??

As a surprise! I'm not looking for anything in particular

Maybe on how to handle my mom actually...

Hello hello! Yes you absolutely can have a reading from me!!!

Since your reading isn’t a roleplay one, I’ll give you that surprise reading and the one about your mom!

The first reading…screamed some steps to take about how to handle your mom…

The Hierophant

The Hierophant represents conformity, legacy, social norms, and spirituality. To me, this feels like where you’re currently at. Tradition and expectations are keeping you within social expectations. This card also represents a spiritual guide, one that can lead you to new beliefs. Perhaps there is someone in your life that can help you with your mom, or maybe you need to look within yourself to find that guidance. Either way, its important to recognize where you’re at before you can get to where you’re going…

The Emperor

The Emperor represents a warrior, a leader. You are the ruler of your own life, and sometimes that means facing your adversaries with a just, firm hand. You need to be brave and stand tall when handling your mother. Sometimes, its hard for parents to see past the little child you once were, bold actions are occasionally required to be seen as exactly what you are. (Just remember to be a JUST AND KIND ruler of your life…and not a tyrant…)

Eight of Cups

Finally, The Eight of Cups. I don’t know how old you are, so I’d be careful to encourage this card until you are able to fully take care of yourself…but sometimes, walking away to improve your mental and physical health may be best for both parties. Maybe its just for a short time, give you and your mom the space to breath and self reflect. Or maybe its for longer, each of you needing to live your own lives before you can look at each other under a new light. Either way, seek the truth behind the struggles you face with your mom. Sometimes we can feel so clouded by our present circumstances that we forget to look at the facts.

Conclusion

Assess your current situation, take control of your own life, stand up for yourself, and find the root of the problems with your mom. Handling parents can be a tough situation. It may feel a touch dramatic but…treat it like a battlefield haha. Assess your current situation (the battlefield), take control over your own life (you are the commander), stand up for yourself (you are the WARRIOR) and find the root of the problems (you are the strategist). But like…don’t forget that you can’t lead an army alone. Don’t forget to talk to your advisors and those in your life that you can trust (those “spiritual guides” mentioned in the hierophant)

Hope this helps!

Surprise!

I literally just started shuffling when these cards popped right out at me…lets see what they want to say!

Five of Coins

Um…you ok? Five of Coins represents hard times. Seems like a call back to your first reading about your mom. Just to reiterate…don’t forget to ask for help. Like yeah, you need to OWN your life and be brave and fight for yourself…but like…ask for help. And if the people you thought were your “advisors” don’t help you…they weren’t the guides you needed. Do NOT ever think you’re alone in this ok? Keep reaching out until you find the ones who deserve to stand by your side.

The Empress

Funny how your first reading’s second card was the emperor and your second reading’s second card is the Empress!

This card represents nurturing, abundance, and accomplishment. To me, the Empress’ strength comes from the world around them. The world is BEAUTIFUL. Life may be hard right now sure but…look around. The world is still so beautiful. Draw strength from the good things in life and use it to nurture yourself. Strength comes in many forms!

The Star

Aw, The Star is a nice card to end on! It literally means hope after disaster. The stars shine brightest in the dark after all! Things can and will get better again, its all about taking what you’ve learned and really applying it to your life. Open your eyes, mind, and heart to the endless possibilities that awaits for you BECAUSE points at previous cards the world is beautiful and there are people willing to stand by you and support you if you only look.

[defiantsuggestions]

I don't entirely know how to word this but...

Yes, there are people out there who had good parents, who were difficult kids to raise. There are people who grew up hating the advice their parents gave, and then realized over the course of growing up that their parents were right.

There do exist members of the population were wrong as kids, who learned better, and have a good relationship with their parents as adults.

It's hard growing up. You're learning to be an entire person and a lot of times, even if the circumstances are perfect, relationships can be strained due to influences outside of anyone's control, and kids can blame their parents for things that aren't their parents fault.

Those people, who had good parents but had difficulties growing up...don't always realize that their experience isn't universal.

So, when they meet an abuse victim who is talking about their abuse or who has mentioned cutting off contact with their family, it tends to be their own experiences they draw from.

So they'll give advice like, "did you try talking to them," or, "but they're only looking out for you," or even, "but they're your family!"

Not because it's the right advice for you, but because it's the advice they would give to themselves.

They remember a time when they were furious with their parents over something they(the child) was in the wrong for, and they project that onto you.

They produce a solution to the wrong problem. They assume your situation is like theirs.

Made worse by the fact that a lot of people just straight up don't want to think about the fact that abuse exists so they tend to reject the possibility.

And it is frustrating, to be talking about something we've suffered only to have the other person take our parent's side without really understanding the situation.

But it's important to know that...they don't understand the situation.

Which means that their advice doesn't neccesarily apply.

Not everyone who is well meaning has good advice.

And...I don't know. There are also people who were abused who have internalized it in such a way that they think what happened to them is fine and that this is just normal. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Human experience is vast and varied and there are a number of reasons I've been given bad advice and some of it was simply that the person I was talking to has such a widely different experience than I've had that they just...don't get it, and won't get it, and no amount of words I could say would express to them where the gap is.

[eruverse]

More Ivan Braginsky headcanon — trauma responses

I am writing this on behalf of @justknocking from our discord chat. All of this here comes from them and I’m only adding a bit of notes. Effectively, this is a shared headcanon because their Vanya is now mine too lol.

Firstly, yes, Ivan has deep traumatic backstory and everyone can see that from 100 km away. This comprises a long chain of events so his trauma responses are borne from things that keep piling up and finally spilling over? Something like that. It was certainly not from an isolated, singular circumstance. I’m gonna list what those things are, which are historical:

The loss of his mother, Rus, who was already weakening before Mongolia came for their first encounter on the Battle of Kalka River in 1223 (it was still Mongolia, not Golden Horde yet). Mongolia was instrumental in her death, with Golden Horde finalizing it.

Golden Horde’s vassalage of lands that would be Russia. If Rus’ death was scary for him, Golden Horde’s invasion was when Ivan truly learned what it was like to be small and helpless.

Life with Golden Horde. It wasn’t so bad for his people relatively speaking, but occupation is still an occupation and he was still shown his place under Horde’s boots. It was bearable but it did a number to his further emotional development.

Lithuania who he wanted to befriend but occupied his lands instead. Huge parts of it lol.

This fic here (tw rape) Background is siege of Moscow by Tokhtamysh of Golden Horde. The city was sacked.

Ivan the Terrible abandoning him in Moscow in 1571 when Crimean Khan came marching down and burned it. Ivan adored his king and the ground he walked on, so he thought he was a bad little boy because he had to be left alone (with an enemy, even).

Huge famine after Ivan the Terrible died. It was bad time all around as his whole family also perished which meant no one could inherit the throne after him, resulting in Russians fighting for power. Then outsiders tried to take over Russia again: Sweden took over some lands and Poland even took over the throne in Moscow and lived there for two years. This is when Ivan got decapitated and you could say that he lost his last marbles and went absolutely mad after this.

All of these events that occurred throughout hundreds of years incited deep traumatic responses. They are:

Vanya dissociates easily and readily. Do you know someone whose eyes just suddenly glaze over and look empty, but like, actually void? Yeah. Ivan is an emotional boy but also is capable of extreme detachment because of it.

Violent pain responses. He attacks people when he is hurt or threatened and can’t control the extent of his strength. This often results in skulls being bashed in, limbs being ripped, or flesh being torn out even though that’s not his intention. At the same time, he can bear basically everything from the people he likes and wants affection from (more on that later). His pain tolerance is actually high, so his perceived hurt often comes from more emotional pain than strictly physical ones.

Will go to great lengths to please people he likes (aka wants attention and affection from). In this he is like a toddler going after an adult man with a candy.

Has stockholm syndrome for almost all his rulers. High emotional dependency on them like a toddler with separation anxiety (I think especially when he was much younger).

Doesn’t think he can object authorities too much whom he sees as parental figures. Does sometimes run away from them tho (from getting overwhelmed) but will return if really demanded back.

Prone to anger/outbursts and tears (this is canon I think lol)

Doesn’t feel much empathy in that he is self centered. Not in a malicious psycho way tho, he’s none of that — but it is a childish self centeredness like the way many toddlers are only focused on their own gratification while not taking others into account. Get it? He doesn’t intentionally treat others badly but he often forgets that they too have emotional needs. His love is focused on his own self and he is kind to others so they would love him and shower him with affection, not because one should treat others the way they want to be treated.

He has a twisted world perception: for him, he is the center of the world with everyone else surrounding him. Again, he is like this because his brain is seemingly stuck on early childhood development with extremely narrow and self centered emotional mindset. He calibrates everything with how it relates to him and how it makes him feel. He cannot imagine things from others’ perspectives, or by putting him in others’ shoes. He cannot imagine situations using others’ logic. In that Ivan is actually deeply pure.

Painfully aware of everything around him if it relates to him. He wants to know every move, every gesture, every expression of the people who interact with him. Often gets obsessive about them too because he has such high hopes with these kind of people. He is a child starved of love.

[septembersghost]

Sorry to send this random message, but since you like both elvis and taylor I was curious for your opinion. I've seen people comparing would've could've should've to elvis and priscilla's relationship and that they can't wait for videos set to that when the priscilla movies comes out... saying elvis is like the subject of that song stuns me and breaks my heart, but what do you think?

don't be sorry honey! <3 it's such a complex topic and is often misjudged/weaponized with the worst intent, which tends to be unfair to both of them.

prefacing this with priscilla herself saying, “It’s hurtful, for a man who has given so much, to have others pick him apart. I’ll die defending him and his legacy. Because he deserves it.”

also going to refer to this ask from a few months ago.

okay, to be more blunt than i typically am, their relationship overall should not have happened, for a lot of reasons and both their sakes, but i don't like saying that because it erases the love they shared, cilla's agency, lisa marie's existence (and her children's), and the entirety of the life they shared, and i don't think that's right to do. should elvis have turned her down gently and guided her away when they first met? probably! should her parents have put their foot down and told her absolutely not, in no uncertain terms, were they sending her to memphis, and insisted she move on and continue her normal life? yes. she was an emotional young woman who was head over heels in love with one of the biggest stars in the world, and who can blame her, but she would've gotten over it. but that's not what happened. so we have to contend with what did.

elvis was a complicated, sometimes mercurial, often wonderful, man. he had come through extraordinary and extreme events literally from birth, and certainly in the rise of his star, experienced a certain degree of...i don't want to use this phrase, but arrested development?...because of his unusual circumstances. (no judgment on that, i have talked many times about being frozen at 19 because of what's happened in my life, i really empathize with why certain things were difficult and disorienting for him in my own tiny way, just like i, as someone chronically ill, hold empathy for his health too). he was dealing with what i'd categorize not only as profound grief and loneliness following his mother's death, but also compounded trauma for a number of reasons.

i think about the quote from his costar in follow that dream, anne helm, saying he was still such an innocent, "He was surrounded by a lot of people that took advantage of his generosity. It was a more innocent time. I mean, Elvis was -- how old was he? 24, 25? [Actually, Elvis was 26 when the film was shot in the summer of 1961.] He was a baby, and I was, too. We were very young. As much as Elvis was a celebrity, he was a big kid, he was a lot of fun." he had an inherent earnestness and compassion that was guileless.

one of his contradictions here is that, with priscilla, he also had a paternalistic quality where he was looking after her and doing what he thought was best for her. the people who try to frame this as predatory claim he was abusing her, even though that is not how priscilla characterizes it. he had this need to nurture and be nurtured, and he tried to look after her, but he was far from perfect in doing so since his lifestyle wasn't conducive to some of what she needed. that said, he set definitive boundaries with her for a reason. had he been preying on her maliciously, the end goal would've always been exploiting her in some way (namely for sex), but we know he decidedly didn't do that, that in fact she was very frustrated with him because he refused to sleep with her for multiple reasons, and wouldn't until they were married. by which point she was very much a consenting adult.

guiding her look the way he did i don't think he meant to be controlling or harmful, his approach wasn't inherently abusive, it came from genuine care. everyone knew he was pushing it, but they were in love and sometimes no amount of arguing will defy that. he had conflicted feelings about marriage, but i think he really did desire that security of family and love and home, even though he struggled with the commitment of that, and he also never felt wholly seen, safe, or secure in any of his romantic relationships. (this wasn't unique to priscilla, it's a recurring theme). and tbh a lot of that was also likely rooted in trauma, because that has effects on a person.

it's also relevant to note that it was an entirely different time. outrage on the internet prefers to ignore this, but it's vital for context. it may not excuse their initial connection, but by the time she went to memphis, and certainly by the time they got married, their romance and marriage wouldn't have been that unusual. the age gap discourse has gotten REALLY BAD and utterly flattened in a way that ignores all nuance and all particulars of the human beings involved. it doesn't always equate to abuse. it's unkind at the least and dehumanizing at the most to categorize every dynamic that way, and when priscilla herself refutes it and has never called herself a victim, i am not going to categorize him that way. relationships are vast and unique and imperfect, and sometimes people just fall in love! it's not intended for mass consumption or approval by total strangers, especially decades later.

priscilla herself discusses her girlhood and her growth into womanhood, and how much a part of it he was, how he was often many different roles to her. she mentions her naivete, her feelings of unsophistication, and how she grew into herself.

they both grew and changed. and some of that led them in distinctly different directions. she also mentions how they shared a connection and warmth, that in many ways they found more kindnesses and understanding for one another after they divorced. she, and we, will never know how their dynamic might have continued because his death closed that door forever, but she has grieved and loved him. she's not perfect either, and certainly i don't agree with everything she's done, but i cannot abide vilifying elvis and victimizing priscilla when that wasn't their story. they both deserve better and more understanding than that.

how dare people decide for her that she was deceived or that her girlhood was stolen? how dare people disregard her own words and experience and the love she has for him in such a puerile and vicious way?

taylor's story is HER STORY. she didn't intend for it to be applied to others without their consent, or copy/pasted over other dynamics. what she experienced with john was wholly different. he did take advantage of her in a calculated sense. he did use her youthful worship of him and how enamored she was to manipulate her, and then turned it against her. it wasn't a loving dynamic between them at all - she was in love and he got an ego boost and thought he could also make a conquest. it damaged some of her sense of herself, her approach to sex, love, and relationships, and permanently impacted her in some ways - even if she's healed, she shared that the scars still exist and haunt her. it's nowhere near the same tone that priscilla (nor any woman) uses about elvis. i think it's awfully presumptuous and cruel to decide to boil them down to 30 second fan edits using an extremely raw and personal song written generations later about an entirely different experience.

it's...gross and exploitative, not supportive or sympathetic to cilla. the agenda of it to cut down elvis is transparent. lisa would hate it. i really, really disagree with it and it's just a way to outrage bait. and it breaks my heart too. i know it's going to happen, i'm sure those little tiktoks will be prevalent, but i will not be giving them any credence or attention. i respect them both too much for that, and understand their mistakes and imperfections, and tbh cherish him more as a human, a sensitive and generous soul, and an artist than anyone can ever understand when they try to tear him down.

[0shewrites0]

This sounds controversial, but imagine Yandere Lucas??

Hi 🫶🏼

First of all, thanks for the ask!

Secondly, here’s what yandere means in Japanese fiction:

A character, usually a girl, who has an obsessive and possessive side in regards to their crush, ready to use violent and murderous means to maintain an exclusive bond.

So, what about yandere Lucas? Could that be a thing?

I think we can state as a fact that Lucas has a very strong possessive side. This simply comes with his - admittedly sometimes irrational - jealousy. Lucas is a very intense and passionate character, so I can easily imagine him drifting to an obsessive extreme as well.

We already have that when it comes to order and disorder, cleanliness and chaos. He is very strict about this and emphasizes how much chaos drives him up the wall.

Next, I can imagine him being a bit obsessive when it comes to work-related details, such as keeping a strict separation between work and personal life. Also, he's obviously well-built, and for that he needs a tight workout schedule. I see him going to the gym every day after work to maintain his physical fitness. And I imagine he has a general work day/daily routine that he adheres to almost punctiliously (even on weekends). If something were to happen that threw him out of that routine, I could easily imagine him losing his cool. Maybe not outwardly, but definitely inwardly.

We've established that Lucas has both obsessive and possessive traits, which - depending on the circumstances - can easily go to extremes. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that he develops violent or murderous intentions in order to keep something (a relationship, for example) the way he wants it.

Why?

That would contradict his feelings about his upbringing. I imagine his parents resorted to some pretty harsh means to get him to follow their orders when he was a kid - you can interpret that however you want - because his father definitely didn't have a lot of love to give and he was probably pretty damn strict and cold in the way he taught Lucas to grow up and "become a real man."

Secondly, Lucas would never lay a hand on a partner. No matter what they would do, that's not even up for debate. He respects them too much for that. In general, Lucas may well resort to violence if there's no other way, but he's not so quick to get into a fight. He will always try to find a civil solution, and he has some serious self-control.

And finally, he knows how it felt to be kept in a gilded cage that deprived him of the opportunity to be truly free in his ideas about his future. That's probably why he's developed a rebellious streak, and why motorcycles play such a big role in his life. Riding a bike lets him breathe, it lets him feel freedom in a way that nothing else can.

Is he a control freak?

Yes, because he knows what it's like not to be in control, having grown up in conditions that forced him, among other things, to move whenever his parents had to. But he is aware of that and he is definitely someone who works on himself. That's why he would never start trying to control a partner. (Even though there are fics where Lucas is the villain and does just that without a reason whatsoever 🤮🤮).

Final verdict:

Although Lucas tends to be (somewhat) possessive and obsessive, he would never use violent or even murderous means to maintain a relationship. That is not to say that he wouldn’t do everything in his power to protect his partner if threatened by anyone or anything. But this would never be directed against his partner in a pathological way.

Picture source

[lynnedwardswrites]

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! What are some traditions surrounding love (platonic and romantic) in your world?

Hallo! Thanks for the ask. You'd think I'd have developed more of these kinds of traditions considering that Isabella and Creed aren't married even though they've been together for a decade. This is at least partially because neither of them find the marriage traditions (that are implied to exist??) compelling... nor the labels and formalities.

Hmm, let's start with what I do know. I wanted to build a society that was neither patriarchal nor heteronormative, so right off the bat, different roles and inheritance patterns. Rather than gendering things, I decided to make inheritance about birth order instead. First children inherit a certain status, second and later children inherit a lower one. When two people (regardless of gender) get married (and are of a high enough social class that this matters at all; ok, yes, we're talking marriage for the elite), it is either apparent or their families negotiate which of them becomes Realmliege(/lord/lady) and which becomes Houseliege(/lord/lady).

The Realmliege is generally chosen because their family is the higher status of the two, or they're the elder born, in that order, and is responsible for managing and running family properties and businesses, governance (if the family controls a township or a larger realm), and anything relating to matters beyond the domestic.

The Houseliege is generally in charge of the household itself, food stores, management of staff, perhaps running the household's garden and greens, managing children, and they're also in charge of hospitality and politicking: socials, dinners, parties, that kind of thing.

Realmliege manages property, Houseliege manages people. Realmliege manages income, Houseliege manages the home. Kinda like American gender roles, but the Houseliege is expected to have more say in how money is spent, and can sometimes wind up with a more domineering level of control over domestic life (not that that's uncommon in America, but hopefully you get the picture). And hopefully you can see the marriage intrigue opportunities of "My parents have always expected me, a first born, to end up Realmliege but there's this super hot guy in a much bigger house and now I have to figure out how to run a household..." and so forth.

When people get married, the Houseliege can either keep their family name or take the Realmliege's family name, depending on factors like the relative status of either name and so forth. (Most common folk just keep their family name). But when naming children in a split-named marriage, the eldest takes the Realmliege's name, and the remaining children take the Houseliege's family name, both as a way to honor that family, and to differentiate younger children. (In a common marriage, the first child takes the birth-mother's name, and subsequent children in a stable marriage are often given the birth-father's, but it's also not uncommon to just take your mother's name since it's pretty damn evident to everyone that she's definitely your mom; you came out of her.)

Anyway. Hopefully that level of complexity makes it clear why the idea of Isabella and Creed getting married is a little ridiculous to them. Isabella is the daughter of an emperor, after all, and Creed is "just" an orphan who never knew his parents. Is Creed going to go around calling himself Creed Morgenstern when that name bears so much weight? Creed doesn't even have a last name (that he'll acknowledge anymore), so they can't use his name. And Isabella would obviously be the "Realmlady," but what does that even mean for them? That role dichotomy just doesn't reflect their circumstances or how they want to live. It seems silly and stupid to try to fit their relationship into that mold. And when you consider that they're con men who spend 99% of their time in the world going by completely other names, well. They might as well just claim they're married when it makes sense, and claim they're "partners" or "companions" when it doesn't, and let the thing be what it is.

Ya know. Until I decide to give them reason to reconsider. ;)

Hopefully this was not mind-numbingly pedantic. I love playing with my social structure mindtoys. 🥺🪀🧸🚒

(Also I know the question was about love, and not its institutionalization. I'm sure there are a thousand "this is how Realmliege and Houseliege treat each other to prove their love and commitment and improve marital happiness" things, but my protagonists like to treat them all like they're artificial and prescriptive and performative (even when they're not), so through their eyes, I have very little to give you besides a lump of "ew gross love lol" that they have very intentionally left unexamined. After all, "Everything is a con." They'll have to earn the "Everything but us" part.)

[tavwrote]

hi i couldn't not talk about this at some point, apologies for the ramble that's about to follow,

kunikida can be simplified into two things: his ideals—more specifically, his obsession with saving everyone—and his schedules. however, both of those, in my portrayal anyway, are habits he picked up in response to a single traumatic moment.

those who worked at the agency before dazai knew a significantly more carefree and lenient version of kunikida, but around two years into the job, he experienced six different losses at once. and on his youngest sister’s birthday, no less. that single event affected him horribly, and he almost blamed himself as much as the actual killer because he possibly could have prevented it had he just been there on time.

as a result, he grew distant from the few people he had left—aside from katai—because he didn't want to burden them with his problems and deliberately made it difficult for new people to get close. he swore to always protect the innocent, both to make up for being unable to save his family and to prevent anyone else from going through what he did. he even began to obsessively plan everything and stuck to that schedule consistently, that way he'd never risk being late to anything ever again. at first, it was just major events that he wrote down because they were all that mattered, but within just a few months, that had turned into writing down every little thing. that last part was less of a trauma response than it was a need to have the control he really didn't have before, but it still stemmed from it.

most importantly though, what he has never told anyone about are the hauntings. since the loss of his family, his own parents and siblings began haunting him, scolding him for daring to live on when they didn't get to. and it didn't stop with them, because every single person that's died on his watch since then has joined the fray. usually, he just hears their voices, but sometimes he sees them. he just never tells anyone about it or seeks a solution to the hauntings because he feels it's deserved.

however, while he genuinely believes this is all happening... it isn't. they're hallucinations. but he's lived in this delusion for so long that he's trapped himself in it, and nothing anyone says can convince him that they aren't real. and even if anything broke that illusion, he'd lose his entire purpose. yes, his main goal is so save people, but that only exists because he lost people, too. it's those deaths and the hallucinations that push him to work so hard to keep people safe, both to do the right thing, and so that no one else torments him for each of his failures.

unfortunately, kunikida is also aware that saving everyone is impossible, and that's where the defeatist behavior kicks in. once he loses someone, his mindset shifts from " i have to save everyone " to " why bother trying if i keep failing. " it's moments like that where he genuinely believes that he's not good enough to live because he cannot do the one thing he sets out to do. and then that, is what leads to the unhappy thoughts.

simply put, kunikida is suicidal. but not in the way dazai is. kunikida's manifests in a more passive way, as what would be seen as " accidental deaths " than " suicide attempts. " he cannot take his own life, because he knows that would leave people wondering what went wrong or if they had any part in it. no, he wants someone or something else to be the cause of it, or at least cause the circumstances he'd end up in. see: the bomb situation with aya, and the... other bomb situation with tetchō, why is it always bombs–

never would he attempt or even consider it in a normal day, but it's almost a guaranteed thought in any situation where he could justify it by disguising it as  a good thing. in aya's case, he was saving several people by choosing the lesser of two evils, and there was a possibility that he would have died there too ( albeit a small one, with yosano being nearby ). if he had, then technically, he would have done so with his ideals still intact. in the case with tetchō, he risked his own life again to save the other members, knowing how likely it was that he would die. and then neither situation worked.

on one hand, he's grateful that he didn't die, because of... a whole bunch of religious / afterlife concerns that could honestly be their own post, but equally as unhappy about it because simply being alive means his purpose is still going to crush him over and over again, and he'll just keep willingly doing it. and make no mistake, he's terrified to die, but he's also aware that with the way he's living, his time with the agency won't even be as long as he originally planned for it to be. it’s inevitable, and his own lifestyle scares him, but there’s really nothing else he can do about it.

[bardicbeetle]

So it seems like a lot of your vampires are pretty young, where/when (ish, it’s OK if you don’t have concrete things for all of them) did they all start? Are there any particularly old ones hiding out, or are they a newer phenomenon in your world? Does being young affect them? Would being ancient?

Oooooh alright nonnie.

Yes, a lot of my vampires are quite young, only dead a few decades or so. But there's a handful of older ones we meet along the way. They aren't a new phenomenon as far as the world at large, but the older ones are definitely few and far between.

So, lets go backwards shall we? And then at the end I'll get more into what age does to them.

Starting with the youngest, Alex is turned present day. The how is still shifting and uhh, frankly I hate that I haven't decided. Current iteration: Eric suggests (read: fucking vampire hypnosis) they just bite the bullet and drink from the bottle Daniel gave them when he and the rest of the vamp!house offered to let Alex stay permanently. They remain in a halfway state between human and vampire before making their first kill, which is one of their parents, which one is also constantly changing.

Next is Moira. She's turned sometime in the early 00s, though she's technically lived with Jesse and Daniel since the 90s. She wanted to settle into the town they bought a house in without doing it in the dark. Which, fair. Jesse is the one who actually gives her his blood, per her request.

Jesse is turned sometime between 1987-1989, exact year pending, but early november whichever one. On the way back to California after his younger sister Sarah goes missing. Originally the plan was for Daniel to kill him, since it was what he wanted (ish, dying on his own terms was better given circumstance). Daniel offers to make him a vampire instead so he can go looking for Sarah (and because both idiots caught feelings, what else is new).

Before this, a brief sidestep from the vamp!house residents, we get Eric. Eric is turned by Carter on Amalthea's orders, though it's somewhat a joint effort (Carter's blood, but Daniel's the one who has to force him to kill). This happens around 1976. Exact location currently unknown. Eric resists (or plays at it) but eventually takes probably too well to vampirism. By the time we reach present day, Eric is a patchwork mix of color and monochrome, saturation leeched from flesh and hair from the amount of Amalthea's blood he's consumed by then.

Aaaand we're back. Daniel is turned by Amalthea in 1967, after blacking out drunk and waking up in an unfamiliar forest. She torments him for a little while, and forces his first kill to be his fiancée's younger brother. None of this goes well for him. He remains under her complete control for about six years before regaining some semblance of himself again.

Carter is next after Daniel, a "casualty" of the revolutionary war. He's turned by Amalthea when she finds him mostly dead on the battlefield. He's mostly content to do as he's told, with the understanding that it keeps him alive and mostly well.

Lila is the eldest of the trio when Daniel is taken into Amalthea's group. She never really mentions how long she's been around, but she does know Madeleine which puts her at least firmly around the 17th century. She's an experimenter, and it ends up getting her (and eventually Carter) killed after she pushes the limits of Amalthea's patience one too many times.

There are a whole host of people between Lila and back but lets get into the proper meat of the question.

Amalthea.

She is, old. There's something consistently unsettling about her, in whatever body she happens to be using at the time. Her original body has been lost to time, and the ones she's taken down the line have just been whatever she's managed to make use of (this was originally Lila's purpose, but that didn't go as planned). Every part of her is color leeched, looking more carved marble than flesh. Everything except the eyes, which stay so bright red they seem to glow. Even if she's just taken a new body, the saturation is going to leech away immediately, as though it can't hold with her presence inside it.

This sort of thing does happen to my vampires once they get beyond a certain age, starting to fade. Not tonally any different, but rather, someone has taken the saturation slider all the way down to nothing. Starting in extremities, in hair, creeping inwards until there is nothing left untouched by the monochrome except the eyes.

Most vampires don't survive that long.

But enough of Amalthea's (or, strictly speaking, any vampire old enough to be fully faded already) blood can start to do it too. In bits and pieces. We see this with Eric, his hair and skin going more and more colorless every time he shows up, a walking neon sign saying he's still in Amalthea's pocket and all the stronger for it. We see it with Daniel when he's taken back, when he's bleeding out everything he can to keep Amalthea's new group weaker and unable to threaten her.

Thanks for the ask!!!

[msfbgraves]

When learning to do dramaturgy after being trained as a historian, I really clung to the mantra of "every story is about today", and I can accept that sometimes you have to look through a different (historical) prism at a current issue to see it clearly, but that's why I vastly prefer fantasy for that.

Because people aren't that different, fundamentally, then 20,000 years ago, it's our circumstances that shape us. You can't have someone reacting to their circumstances like they would to ours. Like,if in the series 1888, a girl in a pristinely white nightshirt dives into a river because she is both innocent and adventurous, or so we as an audience, are meant to learn from that action, I understand the intent... but what those actions actually mean in that context is that she is so spoilt and sheltered as to be sociopatic. Why? Because she doesn't have a washing machine. Sure, to us, what does a cotton nightshirt cost? $20? It's a garment you could stand to lose. But to her, not only did that shirt cost the equivalent of hundreds of dollars - it's a fine shirt - in the context of the story, there's no clothes to buy for several months. And they're on their way on dusty roads in an hour or two. There's nowhere to wash, dry, iron and bleach your now heavy, dripping, stinking shirt. That thing is ruined. You just threw away the equivalent of a designer piece for a spontanuous swim. And now you have no shirt. For months. Does this girl in her late teens not realise that? Then there's something wrong with her. Does she not care? Then she's borderline dangerous to be around, what else does she not care about??That's the difference between having access to a washer and dryer and not having that.

If she's not insane in that context, merely spontanuous, let her be distracted by something during a chore, let her hitch up her skirts and run off - but let her take care not to damage her clothes; let her dress as a boy specifically not to damage her skirts, you can even let her comment: "These'll dry and darn, but if I damage that lace Ma will never forgive me!" Let her sneak out at night to go skinny dipping - and that she would, being naked is far less bad than ruining clothes - but yeah, OP, I concur, you have to work to make the audience understand the context. And that can be a bit hokey, but it's better than the character sending the opposite message of what you mean to say.

Another historical scene was so weird too. A soldier in the 1940s is on leave in Australia, and a girl who he just met jumps into bed with him - without any birth control. Twice. At her parents' house. She's not even drunk. The soldier assumes she means to get engaged, which is logical because crikey, that's a surefire way to get pregnant. But no. She simply wanted to have some fun. Dafuq are you on, lady? This isn't the 1960's! Risking an std and a pregnancy like that isn't logical if you don't want to babytrap people. Yes, 80 years later you can play this as "sorry mate, I didn't mean anything by it, why are you surprised?" But in the 1940's, the guy is right to be crushed, because to do this without birth control (not to mention abortions or std treatment), this isn't casual behaviour. It's like a guy buying you a diamond ring. He wouldn't do that if he didn't mean business. Because buying a ring like that is very costly behaviour. Now in the series they played it as him getting too attached, too soon, after two hookups - but he was being logical here! She was either lying to him or again, insanely irresponsible. Because modern behaviour is too costly in that context! And could they not have him be crushed after a night's dancing, a picnic and a makeout session in the park? That could easily have shown his longing for domesticity and love as well without having the woman do something potentially life threatening.

But that requires money and time and some knowledge of women's lives through the ages - but for that you need the work of female historians to trickle into pop culture, and given the fact that women have only been a major factor from the 1970's onward, this means that anyone socialised before the 1990's at the earliest problably isn't aware of these things and doesn't think of them unless they're women and maybe not even then.

I'm getting so sick of major female characters in historical media being incredibly feisty, outspoken and public defenders of women's rights with little to no realistic repercussions. Yes it feels like pandering, yes it's unrealistic and takes me out of the story, yes the dialogue almost always rings false - but beyond all that I think it does such a disservice to the women who lived during those periods. I'm not embarrassed of the women in history who didn't use every chance they had to Stick It To The Man. I'm not ashamed of women who were resigned to or enjoyed their lot in life. They weren't letting the side down by not having and representing modern gender ideals. It says a lot about how you view average ordinary women if the idea of one of your main characters behaving like one makes them seem lame and uninteresting to you.

[sweetofsin]

life is so scary and beautiful and deathly terrifying and gorgeous at the same time. so deeply paradoxical too because we oftentimes try to search and cling onto control in certain areas that we don't have a lot of control over, and then we release control and sink to helplessness in areas where we do have more control over. i think life is all about figuring out, how much power and control do i have within this situation? what can i do? even if it's something big or small—and if all you can do is nothing, that's okay too.

i grew up experiencing powerlessness and helplessness. nobody could save me except myself. a lot of life happened to me, and i was a passive existence. now, i am determined to make life happen. i'm not great at it. sometimes i'm tired. sometimes i'm exhausted. sometimes all i can do is just... be... exist... but oftentimes, i refuse to just experience things. to just let life take control over me. i am life! i am happening within life, it's not just happening to me. i don't only want change to happen when i just so happen to stumble upon it. i have to embody change. i don't only want to experience growth through passing the time by and somehow waiting for the growth to happen. i have to intentionally put in the effort to grow. i may not have a lot of control over unpredictable external circumstances. i do have some control over what i choose to do with a lot of my circumstances. even if IM FUCKING TERRIFIED AND SCARED. i'll do it scared....

i grew up thinking that life had no choice to happen to me. being stuck in freeze mode. i can't do anything. i can't change anything. i'm powerless. i was stuck in a loop that i could not exit, i could not change, and there was no rescue.

i'm still stuck in some freeze mode, but i have no choice but to learn that the primary person that can save me is myself. no parent, no sibling, no friend, no god. only i can get myself through things. only i can choose bravery or courage or ways to overcome things. only i can figure out how to get myself through situations. only i can learn and make mistakes and fail and get back up again—because nobody else is going to choose what i do or choose my choices or choose my path or choose any of these things except me. my friends can offer beautiful support and love and advice yes, but only i have to go out there and make it happen. i am no longer a victim without power. i have the power to end SOME things, some cycles—and that power strengthens through the love of people around me. most importantly!!!!! through the love of myself... still working on it of course...

[isaacsapphire]

People respond incentives. Incentives are different for different classes of people, and different in different circumstances.

We've been discussing package theft. In a geographically physically non hilly neighborhood with high foot traffic, a porch that is only a few steps high and only a few flat steps away from that heavily traveled sidewalk, it is very little physical effort and very little time for a person who is tempted by a package on that low porch to grab it, and with high foot traffic, the chance of such a person walking by while there's a package on the porch is higher.

Compare a porch in a hilly neighborhood with lower foot traffic, where two full flights of stairs have to be climbed to reach the porch, which can barely be seen from sidewalk level. The street itself is steep enough that few people walk up it unless they live in the neighborhood.

Is anyone surprised to hear that almost no packages are stolen from the second porch, despite being in the same city in a similar rent range? The average passerby is not necessarily of greater average virtue in the second neighborhood, they just don't want to take the time and effort to climb two flights of stairs to even find out if there's a package, and there's fewer passerby, so the probability of Porch Pirate Georg coming along is lower.

I've run into this issue professionally too; compare a permanent full time employee, someone who gets their health insurance through the job, has a 401k retirement fund, vacation days, and could expect to continue working there for years if they want, with a seasonal temp worker who has no benefits and will not have this job in two weeks no matter how good of a job they do.

You don't need to suppose that the temp worker is less virtuous or more criminally inclined at all! Their incentives are different; the permanent employee would risk their future employment and their benefits if they stole from work, whereas the seasonal temp risks... The next two weeks of work. Now, the pay rate is not identical between these two groups either, so one might also theorize that the temp worker is more impoverished and so in some sense has a greater need to steal too, but this is not necessary to explain different behavior.

So back to the package stealing rich kid. Yes, sometimes the scions of well-off families do steal packages, shoot rivals, join gangs, and do meth. Their parents do pull strings for them. Sometimes the little darling pulls out of their dive before the family lawyer is no longer able to save them from themselves, or before daddy gets sick of their bullshit and leaves them to their fate. Sometimes they don't. If you ask around about family histories and about people's siblings and cousins, the Type of Guy or Gal who was born well-off and then was a little too Assaults Georg or too susceptible to falling in with The Wrong Crowed or getting addicted to drugs starts to become obvious. There's overlap with the scions with mental health issues TBH. And overall, yeah, those people DO often fall in class. Not always, not always all the way down, but they do fall, especially when they only started as upper middle class.

I would be being dishonest if I didn't elaborate a bit more about the Assaults Georg behavior among the Wall Street Ivy League class; this class collectively is a physical danger to anyone fuckable of a lower class, especially but by no means limited to the young men of this class. They are controlled about their targets though, because the ones who aren't get in trouble when the angry law firm partner dad of the girl next door comes after them. As long as they restrain themselves to people like us though, well, we both know that we could be forced to settle out of court and sign an NDA.

Yes, richer neighborhoods are safer from petty theft, assaults, and gun crime. And yes, that does mean that "if that's true any kind of belief that it's impossible to increase wealth means that more of us are being warehoused with (certain kinds of) criminals." An unpleasant implication doesn't make something untrue.

worth blogging over and over

[shipsawayandusuallygay]

I couldn't disagree more with this take on Baby!Jack being abliest or supporting cishet tropes as an actual autistic queer who has ONLY been in relationships with queer and non cis people for the last 30 years.

Baby!Jack only erases his personality if the writer choose to not write them like Jack. To think you can't convey character non verbally is ablest, disregards him being a nephilim & assumes he would be devoid of personality as a child which is ridiculous.

It's been stated in canon that Jack purposely choose the appearance of not a child for his safety and because according to him that's what his mother thought was needed. It was a a need, not a want forced on him by circumstances out of his control. Again talk about not having his own agency. Like Dean he was forced to grow up too quickly; for Dean it started at 4, for Jack it was at birth. Name me one child especially an older teen who doesn't hate being called a child or treated as one? Of course he's not going to like it when his parental figures point out that his a child both in his human emotional development and in his angel powered development. Yes he is part angel but he is also human. If he truly was an adult he would have the emotional maturity of one.

The next one about it's wrong cause he has what some people say are ND traits wtf...first of all neurodivergent people are not "child like", that's a label put on them by neurotypicals. Being non verbal knows no age, interacting in different ways to stimulus knows no age. It is ableism that labels those behaviours as "child like" & tries to infantalize autistic and ND people. The canon for Jack is he literally didn't have certain knowledge of humanity when he was born because he was a newborn which had be taught to him and he learned it just like how neurotypical child do. Nothing to do with being neurodivergent.

Ok what the fuck, assuming domestic Destiel is automatically hetero and nuclear family conforming? Guess what Queer families are queer when the people in them are queer. period. It's pretty damn homophobic to think that if two people of the same gender are together they magically start acting like some patriarchal cishet fantasy. And the assumption that if a man is FEMME or feminine that he is suddenly the wife is sexist, homophobic, misogynistic and an incredibly ignorant understanding of queer relationships.

Again I have to ask do these folks making these claims have the lived experience of being in queer marriages like mine of 20 years, of the experiences of being autistic (diagnosed 48 years ago as a toddler) because the assumptions and justifications they are making as so far off.

Now personally sometimes I like baby!Jack and sometimes I don't but it's usually based on the story. I personally wish the ending of SPN had Jack not becoming God but being safe enough to get to actually experience life as a nephilim child which means being 3 and aging like any other nephilim before him did. I think him being an adult was forced on him & just like Dean, Sam & Cas had their lives controlled I think he deserved to experience life including being a child. In a just world his mom would be alive too and co-parenting with Cas and his husband Dean. I think he would still be Jack with Jack's likes and unlikes and core personality.

take your pick!

[whack-a-moron]

I'll admit to jumping the gun on you for that first part. All I've had in my notes all week are pro-lifers who think abortion shouldn't even be an option on the table for anyone.

I don't recall the exact statistical page, but it was about the U.S. (and highly developed/wealthy countries) and the breakdown was 67% by their parents, 13% by an aunt or uncle, 3% by an "other" family member. 17% was committed by someone outside of their family. And the average life expectancy of most trafficked children, especially in sex trafficking, is 7 years (due to attacks/murder, abuse, HIV/STDs, malnutrition, overdoses, or suicide).

Talking exclusively about sex trafficking, there are about 300,000 new children who enter the sex trade each year. That's pretty easy math. 300k x 7 = at minimum 2 million children at any given time being trafficked for sex in the U.S., but its probably quite a bit higher than that since that's just the minimum "sustained" population of the victims who are dying within that 7 year period.

The page didn't have any solid data on labor trafficking but noted that there's an additional count for other forms of trafficking outside of sex.

I can't recall if it was the same page or a different one, but child mortality at the hands of their own family is also pretty high. 95,000 child deaths per year across wealthy/developed countries. In children age 5 and under, 56% is committed by parents. In babies 1 year and younger, 78% is committed by parents.

These statistics make sense, especially for the U.S., because parents/family have more legally guaranteed access to their own children most of the time even when the environment and circumstances are beyond fucked up. There's very much an attitude of "ownership" that parents/family have over their own children except in the most extreme circumstances of abuse (theoretically), which makes sense, but often leaves many children stuck in awful situations.

I definitely agree on CPS, government, and at least some parts of the foster/adoption system being little more than legally-sanctioned human trafficking. Yes, it does its job sometimes to put children in good homes where they need to be. It fails to do that or actively puts them in harms' way just as often. So I have extremely mixed feelings about all of that. But let's not mince words on what it is.

The fact of the matter is that pro-choice (compared with "pro-life") is and should be about availability of OPTIONS. Which Pro-Life movements actively seek to take away. And slippery slope is a very real thing.

Today its "No abortions but we'll make exceptions for XYZ", tomorrow its "No abortions period at all".

Even in places with exceptions, the most vulnerable people who need and qualify for the exceptions the most aren't getting them, despite that they theoretically should be, which is what happens when you put a system in place that actively seeks to bar, even "partially", access to these procedures.

That's also the problem with fully privatizing abortion options, such as making it funded only by private insurances paid for by the individual. Yes, there are people who will treat it as nothing more than a "tax funded birth control option". That's the unfortunate price to allowing vulnerable people who can't afford it any other way access to abortions if they need them, but those are the people who suffer the most if you make the barriers to entry too high. Even in places where abortion is completely legal and accessible, the cost barrier is often too much for them to achieve anyway, but some of them still can, as long as you don't add any extra steps like having to travel out of state to get one.

Adding even more barriers isn't going to help these people, but it'll make the Pro-Lifers feel all warm and fuzzy I guess, which is a fucking weird thing to feel proud about imo.

I'm just saying that if anti-abortion idiots put even half as much effort into combating human trafficking, I'd feel a lot more inclined to take them seriously as being "pro-life" and not just anti-choice.

[dreamwreaver]

Derision is honestly proof that despite having allegedly 70+ writers, not a single one of them know some of the fundamentals of writing.

Yes, human beings are complex, and sometimes bad people do bad stuff for no real reason. They target people just because. But here's the thing; characters are not people. They're are an assembly of character traits, flaws, and most importantly in this case; motivations. It's the interplay of these elements that make characters feel "real" to us, and if any one of these are dropped the character instantly becomes what they literally are, a puppet on a stage.

Let's break it down with our mains:

Why is Marinette Ladybug? In the beginning it's because she was chosen to be a hero by master fu. She did not want the responsibility because she felt she wasn't worthy. But, circumstances arose and a core aspect of Marinette's character is that she cannot stand by and do nothing while people she cares about are in danger. Seeing Alya captured and in peril gives her the strength to don the earrings once more and become the hero that paris needs.

Why is Adrien Chat Noir? Again, at first it's because he's chosen. But the ability to transform and become someone new and unknown is a key part of his character. Chat Noir allows adrien to escape both the expectations of being adrien Agreste the supermodel son, and physically escape an oppressive household filled with the gloom of mourning and an (at the time) emotionally distant father.

Why does Chloe act the way she does? She has a physically and emotionally neglectful mother who she nonetheless idolizes and a spineless father who throws money and objects at problems because he was never taught to handle actual complex feelings. Her parents have also taught her that 1. If you want something it's okay to use underhanded tactics to win. And 2. The innate superiority of being Bourgeois, an exceptional family, gives you free reign to treat the people you see as beneath you like nothing more than dirt under your feet. But these aren't motivations in and of themselves, especially since we've seen that when prompted about what she truly wants, she admits she wants to be useful, and to be loved. Desiring love is Chloe's motivation, and whomever the object of that desire is at any given moment is what affects her behavior. Chloe most closely emulates her mother at any given moment because as we've seen Audrey rewards cruelty to those seen as lesser. The end of Queen Wasp is tantamount to that. When Chloe is desiring the affection of Ladybug or any other good role model she has she is helpful and selfless, even if she has to make a few mistakes to get there.

Chloe's upbringing and core desire for her mother's affection and approval explains why she treats the entire class like crap, and her father's position explains why most staff do not try to discipline her. But it doesn't explain Chloe's preoccupation with Marinette. What is Chloe's motivation with targeting Marinette? Lila has a vendetta against Marinette and ladybug because in both forms Marinette has called out Lila for lying to get what she wants out of people. And Lila doesn't like people she can't manipulate or control so she has a reason to make Marinette's life hell. It's not a good reason, but it is substantial and in line with (up to the end of s5 because seriously wtf) Lila's character. She wants fame and attention and will lie to get that. Anyone she perceives as a threat must be eliminated.

Chloe? What's the point of targeting Marinette anymore than anyone else in the class? Up until Animaestro the audience had a plausible reason; both girls have a crush on Adrien and so Chloe picks on Marinette to get her out of the way. But now we find that she's always been like this and never had any clue that Marinette liked Adrien. Like even the movie, for all its flaws, accomplished this. Marinette spilled coffee on Chloe. Granted it was a singular drop, but given the kind of over dramatic person Chloe is it's not out of the realm of consistent characterization for her to target Marinette in revenge for "ruining" her sweater. The motivation for targeting Marinette isn't good, but at least it's consistent with what we know about Chloe. But what purpose does retconning Marinette to have always been Chloe's favorite punching bag have aside from sloppily trying to tackle the criticisms people had about Marinette's behavior. Essentially, it reeks of Disney live action remakes where they ruin the story by trying to address the haters with metatextual commentary, except they can't even do that since other background characters have to act as mouthpieces just to further stick it to the fans!

On a serious note, why do you not like Derision? I mean, I can guess why, but I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts (if you want to).

What have they done to my boy?!

I guess we'll start with the whole "trauma" thing since that's how the episode starts - with Marinette going on a date with Adrien at the pool but constantly getting heart palpitations at the very idea of it. And not good lovey-dovey crush ones like Sabine thinks. The Actual Panic Attack kind.

This just feels unnecessary AND too late. Unnecessary because there are plenty of pre-established reasons why Marinette could be hesitant to go all in with Adrien (Being Ladybug, the 354th other times going for Adrien has failed or left her humiliated, Being Ladybug). So I don't know why they invented a trauma for her in the final hour and didn't think it was worth talking about before now?

They really came up with this whole scheme to explain why Marinette does Marinette things, like learning Adrien's schedule, planning out everything before she tries to make a move, needing to know everything about him, as if the show hasn't been mocking her for these exact traits and allowing them to blow up in her face over and over again. But NOW it's due to her TRAUMA. So...retroactively when her friends laughed at her or slapped their foreheads in frustration or the show framed her failures as a joke...we know it's actually from a tragic place and can't laugh anymore.

I mean, I was never laughing, but you get what I mean. They framed it like it was part of the comedy and now they're pulling the rug out from under themselves. How are you supposed to laugh when Adrien brings Marinette constipation medicine, or when her pictures of him are blasted all over Paris Television, or the *ugh* Statue Scene plays out and now you know that this is just adding to her pre-existing trauma? They have shot the show's rewatch value.

I never thought Marinette needed a "reason" act the way she was because those were always just kinda The Things Teenage Girls Do when they have a crush. I've admitted in the past to learning my crush's class schedule just to orchestrate running into each other in the hallways more often, and if their crush had public interviews and magazine pictures, I'm pretty sure most kids would also cut out their pictures to keep and would read and remember the interviews. I never really saw her behavior as that weird for a girl her age with a crush and recognize some cartoon exaggeration.

...Stealing his phone was a little weird, though, I'll give them that though Alya is the one who suggested it first...

SO, we enter a long flashback to One Year Ago (with Marinette now on her third Almost-Akumatization, good lord) and learn what life was like for Marinette pre-Origins, and oh boy. It's hell. She's making up illnesses to avoid school, avoiding all contact with anyone in the courtyard, having cockroaches put in her locker, having the Principal catch her "late" for class (after she had to clean herself up from a water prank), gets yelled at by the teacher for being late, sits in paint, mocked in class and then yelled at again by the teacher for pointing out the person mocking her probably planted it, and gets Saturday detention. All in one day. And when anyone tries to talk to her or even glares at the person responsible, they get threatened too.

The main reason this is hell is because Marinette is being let down by every single adult in her life. Sabine just laughs and tells Marinette that she only has a few weeks left with Chloe and it's not like she'll be in the same class as her next year.🙃 Well, why don't you make SURE she doesn't?! Maybe this is just an American vs French school thing, but where I come from, it's totally within your rights to request that your child not be put in the same class as someone else, they could at least put in a throw away line about her parents TRYING to move her, but Chloe's not allowing it JUST to keep Marinette close to her. And maybe take this a little more seriously, Sabine- your daughter is faking illness to avoid One. Girl. That should be concerning, not "lol my daughter is so silly for trying to get out of class."

Damocles finds Marinette and yells at her for being "constantly late" and praising the "anonymous notes" (signed by Chloe -_-) for always alerting him when she's behind, and then later gives her Saturday detention for...someone clearly planting paint on her desk chair? He sees a victim of bullying and punishes her for it. At the end of the episode he even suspends Socqueline for something that happened outside of school, yet in "Jubilation" she's pumping him up as The Best Principal?! Does this show thinks we're stupid or something?!

Mendeleiev also yells at Marinette for being late. She allows Chloe to make fun of Marinette for looking depressed when she comes in and allows Chloe to mock Marinette for sitting in paint, but when Marinette doesn't even stand up for herself but just accuses Chloe of putting the paint there, THEN Mendeleiev has something to say, and it's to Marinette? For "groundlessly" accusing the only person in the room laughing at Marinette, the one who was just making fun of her, the one who kept her eyes on Marinette so she could watch her sit in the paint?

Marinette tells Socqueline that all the adults are scared of Chloe, but that's not what I saw. Sure, at the end of the episode Damocles is afraid when Chloe pulls a "Lady Wifi" to force him to punish Socqueline for smashing Sabrina's phone, but the sequence of events played out more like the adults participating in the bullying. It wasn't like Damocles was sympathetic to Marinette and then Chloe cleared her throat, so he straightened up nervously and started berating Marinette. It wasn't like Marinette accused Chloe and then Chloe glared at Mendeleiev, forcing her to finally intervene. All the adults see what's going on and are either completely oblivious or don't care.

Also, Chloe totally unprompted says this:

GET A LIFE, what is your PROBLEM?! Like, why have a flashback episode and not have it explain what Chloe's fixation on Marinette even is?! It doesn't have to be big or anything! Like, have Marinette trip and spill something on Chloe in art class! Just do something!

And like, I totally get that irl bullies just choose their targets for no real reason and this is just another example of that, but to this level?! Just...get a hobby!

And then there's the big thing they did in this stupid episode. The unforgivable. The reprehensible.

This fucking guy.

It's been so long since we've seen Bully Kim that I was pretty sure he was left behind entirely on the draft floor. Sure, Kim is still capable of being insensitive or not thinking long-term, but he was a good kid. He roots for his friends and wants everyone to have a good time.

Hell, I could even buy that Kim was dumb enough to believe Chloe when she claims what he did was a funny practical joke that they'd all laugh about later...until Socqueline came up and yelled at him that he should be ashamed of himself.

And Ondine yelled at him in the present that he should be ashamed of himself.

And it's a year later and he should have realized by now that he should be ashamed of himself.

Kim is dumb, that's just a fact, but the way he doubles down and is so sure of himself that NO it's everyone ELSE who has a problem because they can't take a JOKE? Like...why?! Why did they co-sign on this character assassination?!

Just make him become akumatized because he's A S H A M E D of what he did now that he's finally sitting down and thinking about it a year later! He can keep the same look and motif, just have Monarch stroke the part of him that doesn't want him to be the jerk, the old Kim! It's totally normal, especially for a kid, to want to believe that they're not the bad guy even with all the evidence pointing to it, so I could even see the akuma being exactly the same.

But naur, it's KIM who talks like a right-wing podcast douche bag, complaining that you can't just speak your mind these days and everyone needs to get a sense of humor, they just don't GET it man, this is just how he IS brah, take it or leave it! His akuma's even named "Dark Humor", like edgy losers on reddit who make racist/sexist jokes and then get mad when he's downvoted and boo'd out of a forum. God, we just CAN'T TAKE A JOKE I guess.

I'm glad this is resolved by Ladybug gluing a toilet to his head.

I just...I feel like this could've worked in Season 1, or Season 2. Like...put it before Dark Cupid or before Syren or something. That way, Kim being a total douche is the starting point of his character arc, not the Season 5 Post-Hero Run point, ugh.

It'd also make this stupid line make more sense:

I'm sorry, the girl who got you akumatized after she humiliated you in nearly the same way you humiliated Marinette? I guess that was "just a prank bro" too, right?

Establish Marinette's problems with romance early, so she can overcome them or at least give them the proper context. It'd at least make the show look better if they hadn't made fun of her for 4 Seasons only to drop this bombshell on us at the end. You know...the thing that they just did.

This episode just isn't fun. I hated "Illusion" because all you get to see is the bad guys winning and outsmarting the heroes, but "Derision" is a marathon of seeing the absolute misery Marinette was put through, just to jump forward to the present to destroy a character that I really liked.

Would a kid even like this episode?

[delusionalinsecurewreckpiningphd]

the first one is a statement i keep hearing my boss and people five, ten years my age telling me about my juniors and interns. as much as i hate to agree with them, i do see where both are coming from.

those people from the older generation grew up in a time that "making it" was literally a matter of luck and effort. Just the fact that there is no Internet, and "printing documents" was a legit job description means they didn't have access to the vast amount of network, tips, advices, examples of success, etc. that they can use to make it in their career, to move upward socially. It was often for them a matter of getting involved with the right circle that can elevate them up, and the only way for them to do so is by their own effort. Going to events, putting themselves out there, and statistically speaking, the more they did so, the more likely they would meet the right circumstances that promoted them into a higher salary or recommended a career path that they could excel at. And in that process, they understood that it was their responsibilities. They saw that their efforts were rewarded. And so they thought "my income = what effort i put invested in".

The last 20 years fucked up this system. The internet equalizes this but also tells us that yes, even if we might be able to make it comparatively within our own circle, there are other assholes out there that cheats. It's so hard to keep your grit when you see that "cheating" is far more rewarding. Being born into the right family, whether they're caring and supportive, or just sufficiently wealthy. Being surrounded by a supportive environment. Living in a city or a country where there are laws designed for you or at least leaving you untouched. It's privilege. But also, financial insecurity, ecoanxiety, the general consciousness of no matter how hard you try, a random fuck could attack you and screw your day, if not life. Younger generations generally starts to see that there are so much not being in our individual control anymore. So when it comes down to the workplace, "younger generation doesn't feel responsible for their own task anymore" because yeah, why would they, if it doesn't work out for them?

And it genuinely sucks that the whole "owning up your thing", while can be a good life lesson in general, are being used as a critique against the younger folks. A lot of my mentors think of their jobs not as an exchange of their labor for money, but rather as a platform that they can use to affect changes around them, toward their goals. Which is a good thing, a valuable mindset that can be used even when someone is just doing volunteer before getting their first internship. But the fact is, they had that luxury to not be chained by money. It was tough for the older folks too, they sure didn't have the same material conditions we have (not talking about the US - surely i dont know about the boomer baby period etc.). I would guess the difference is the Internet now allowing us to know at some level that it has always been that unfair.

Imagine you're running a marathon with your family. When they started, they ran barefoot. But all around them, everyone was running barefoot. They got to tell themselves, we're the only one that can take us across the finish line.

Then when you started, they gave you running shoes, fed you well, you had phones telling you the good running form, how to breath, video from atheletics sharing tips and advices how to to run and conserve your stamina. And your parents would sometimes say things like "look at all the advantage that they have that we didn't." And then you see on your phone that 5000 miles ahead of you, they were running in a Tesla, puffing out exhaust that surely will be the thing you breath in when you get there.

"Younger generation just isn't as committed to their job/own up to their responsibility anymore" and "younger generation are being severely underpaid that they are no longer able to become self-independent the way people their age merely years ago can" are both true statements and both points to the severely fucked up system being left behind for them