#like????? maybe don't kill off the character with severe mental illness that you JUST started allowing to recover from????????

[autumnoakes]

falling back into an old special interest thanks to clips on youtube and i feel like i'm 12 years old again

[buckybarnesss]

I was thinking the other day, Stiles has really gone through so much with his mom. There's being with her when she died (and the rush of relief/guilt that must have brought), dealing with her forgetting him and attacking him, and then having to fend off a magical clone of her in season 6.

It's interesting to me because no one else really has this level of parental trauma, and it's reoccurring in Stiles' narrative even though he never really talks about it. It's like it really is too personal for him to talk about with anyone, maybe not even Scott.

stiles as a character only makes sense when viewed from the lens of the trauma left by his mother's condition and death. claudia died when stiles was 8 years old and by that point she had gone through severe deterioration both mentally and physically.

we don't know when claudia started exhibiting over symptoms of dementia but i would hazard a guess of maybe 2-3 years seeing as she had a child within the last eight years of her life and stiles has memory of claudia before she was ill. still. it's way too young for him to fully understand what is happening.

like he internalized claudia's delusions that he was trying to kill her to the point of believing it on some level and believed that he was going to kill his father too. like jesus fucking christ.

his anxiety and obsessiveness surrounding his father's health and safety stems directly back to losing claudia. it's why he's so terrified of losing his friends.

hot take here i think his infatuation with lydia is wrapped up in feelings about claudia. he says he's been in love with her since the 3rd grade which would've been around the same time claudia passed. he latched onto lydia martin as a concept and didn't start seeing her as a real person until season 3.

his speech to her in master plan wasn't stiles talking to lydia it was talking to the lydia that was the stand in for his mother.

"you see, death doesn't happen to you, lydia. it happens to everyone around you, to all the people left standing at your funeral, trying to figure out how they're going to now live the rest of their lives without you in it."

it's why their relationship cannot progress romantically until the ghost of his mother is exorcised, but i haven't fully watched 6a yet and i still don't really view a romantic relationship between them as necessarily healthy.

but speaking of 6a, jesus christ the level of trauma of stiles has due to having to endure people forgetting about him. especially his father. his mother already forgot him once and died now his dad too? plus his closest friends. stiles's greatest fear come to life.

like with derek the trauma stiles endures isn't really talked about. stiles witnessed the mechanic get crushed by his jeep in abomination while being rendered helpless to do anything but watch and that's just glossed the fuck over.

this doesn't get into the relationship stiles has with his dad because that's all kinds of tangled. noah stilinski isn't a perfect father. there's definitely a level of stiles being both treated as a child and as an adult by his dad.

and you're right stiles resolutely doesn't discuss it with anyone. it's like he's taken it as his burden to bear and that's it. stiles keeps people emotionally at arms length as some measure of protection for himself. he's not really willing to crack himself open and share. emotionally vulnerability scares him.

one of the few times we see him really open and raw in front of others is when he's trying to talk scott down in motel california and holy shit stiles was fully prepared to just die with scott. you could say he was bluffing but was he? was he really?

the kids ain't alright in teen wolf. allison was never more right when she broke down saying "we're just a bunch of teenagers. we can't handle this."

they all need therapy.

[mollysunder]

Ekko, Jinx, & Viktor: How Do They Carry the Legacy of Their Mentors

Zaun’s three most prominent minds, Ekko, Jinx, and Viktor, have been, or soon will be, cross a threshold they can never turn back from paths once Jinx’s rockets hits the council. Zaun and Piltover will never be the same, neither will the characters. It’s already been stated that the cast will likely become the opposite of who they were during the first season. And I don't think it was supposed to mean a personality flip, it's just the emphasis of traits that were more in the background in the first season, but under these new conditions become more prominent. Everyone on the show has a strong enough character that you can see the wires that make them run and the connections that keep them going. I think the best way to understand where they are going forward is to look at the mentor figures that are or had laid their foundations for them.

Jinx & Silco

They’re the easiest to start with. Jinx and Silco had one of the most complex relationships within the first season. They came together out of a desperation for connection and comfort based on the shared trauma of abandonment, and together they became a family. Silco saw so much of himself in Jinx that he thought he could help her the way he helped himself after Vander’s betrayal. He gave her resources for her weapons projects, he taught her to be vicious like he was, trusted her to understand and handle his special operations, and he gave Jinx the love and validation she constantly sought. No one can argue that they didn’t love each other deeply, he just helped her like he helped Zaun, in a way that hurt her.

The root of their toxicity (outside of the violence and murder that permeates their circumstances) is the that fact Silco treated Jinx like he treated himself. Jinx is an entirely separate person from Silco, with her own set sensitivities and struggles with mental illness. On top of that no matter how often he evangelizes the success of his choice to sever the bonds of his past he couldn’t do it either, he still struggled. Despite Silco and Jinx’s volatility, Silco still chose Jinx over Zaun, not the idea of Jinx with all of the weakness of Powder gone, just her. Silco gave up his future for Zaun for Jinx’s life to be as she is. Upon Silco’s death Jinx, by herself, chose to definitively end any intrigue or negotiation that would be in the way of Zaun’s creation.

Jinx chose to carry on with Silco’s dream, not the way he would have done it, just in her own way. Now Jinx is alone, at least emotionally, and she’s left with Silco’s shimmer empire, his associates, pissed off chembarons, soon to be pissed of Piltovans, enforcers, Sevika, firelights, Caitlyn, her sister and probably Noxian interlopers (maybe even Ionians too) on her case. But if every major character will appear the opposite, Jinx will probably be able to handle it. 

Throughout the first season Jinx was struggled to gain the approval of the ones she loved most, and it kept her interactions insulated to a small circle of people. But now Silco's dead and Jinx’s decided who she is, and that means it's going brutal for literally everyone else. The brief times Jinx is around people she doesn't care about she easily overwhelms them every time, not even physically in Thieram's case. Silco even took cues from her to whip the chembarons away from Finn's attempt to foment dissent. When that scene happened I took it to mean, Silco learned from Jinx as much she learned from learned from him how to manipulate and terrorize people.

Without her struggle for acceptance after recieving full validation, Jinx's left with just herself and what she and Silco built together. Jinx already took the first shot, she knew her actions would lead to at least open conflict. She's going to make Zaun happen through her own more violent means. Jinx already knows most of the ropes. I honestly think it’ll be a 50/50 split between chembarons who want to kill her vs chembarons who think she’d be too much trouble to kill and easier to manipulate. If she really internalized what Silco taught her she can whip them into the shape she wants, it just won’t be easy.

Viktor & Singed

In their first meeting Singed recognize Viktor’s engineering prowess and social isolation and decided to have him work as an assistant. Their relationship breaks down as a young Viktor becomes horrified at the suffering Singed’s experiment causes on Rio. When Viktor returns to Singed’s lab desperate for help as he runs out of time, we as the audience recognize in their exchange that Viktor is going down a similar path that Singed did.

All we know in the Arcane universe about Singed is that he was once a scholar at Piltover academy, he and Heimerdinger were colleagues, and he had a daughter. We know that his experiments caused him to be ostracized from Piltover’s academic community for likely violating the Ethos. But with the existence of his daughter (hinted at being Orianna), we have to speculate how these factors played into his fall from grace. When did his research take priority over the suffering it caused? Shimmer certainly helps as a restricted medicine, but he doesn't care about the "side effects". Was he in a position where his work saved his daughter, but the decision destroyed his reputation? Does he believe that his work will unlock some new breakthrough of human understanding? Was it arrogance? Pure curiosity? Who really knows. What we do know is that Viktor could put himself in harms way, but in the case of Sky, could not sacrifice others.

And that's the thing about Viktor, he's willing to help himself at his at his own expense, but not at the cost of others. He genuinely wants to use Hextech to help others, but with his limited time left he realized how little he's managed to accomplish in Piltover, and when he does do something it's diminished (Heimerdinger). Viktor has achieved so much and helped so little with the Hextech he and Jayce created. And this must all eat at him because his ability to create things for himself and others is where he derives most of his self-esteem, his one true source of pride. Viktor may be the introverted one of the Hextech pair but his self-imposed restraint from attention is learned. He knows what people see when they look at him, worse so in Piltover. It's only when he's in his element is he willing to expose himself to others, it's how he was willing to partner with Jayce.

In the aftermath of Jinx's rocket, Piltover won't be hospitable to him any longer. Once his research on the Hexcore and dabblings in Shimmer come to light he will be cast out of Piltover (if they don't send him to Stillwater first). He wanted save himself with the Hexcore, in trying he killed Sky, and yet he couldn't destroy it after she died. He chose to attempt suicide, but he couldn't destroy his own work, because it's such a fundamental part of him. Viktor can only find justification in keeping his work alive, and he will in Zaun, where he will meet those suffering from injury and illness from Piltover's exploitation. The border between Viktor's conviction to help other vs how his engineering prowess makes up his sense of self worth will blur as he realizes he can help more people if he just keeps pushing. From what I understand the Machine Herald takes on prophet-like status within Zaunite cults, that Viktor does and does not embrace at times. He will push past a point of no return, he'll just do it with the greater good in his mind.

Ekko & Heimerdinger

These two are the latest arrivals. Honestly, they’re the oddest pair. A former Piltovan councilman and a young Zaunite community leader working together and learning from each other. Two people who helped create something amazing in the face of a crisis, Heimerdinger built Piltover to escape the Rune Wars, while Ekko founded the Firelights as a refuge from the Shimmer epidemic. Heimerdinger and Ekko meet because Heimerdinger’s been ejected from the council and has decided to finally visit the neglected half of the city he co-founded. He meets an injured Ekko by chance and helps him back to the Firelight’s Hideout where he’s amazed at what they were capable of building for themselves. It’s supposed to represent Ekko finding a new ally as connects with people who want to help Piltover and Zaun, while Heimerdinger is righting wrongs working with people in Zaun to hopefully improve things.

Even though we see that Ekko has managed to become a leader to a close knit and dedicated community, he’s had to grow up abruptly to meet the brutality of Silco’s reign. Despite having a community of his peers, based on his reaction to Vi’s hug, he hasn’t been able to find comfort and support in an adult figure in a long time. In theory someone like Heimerdinger, who’s persona screams gradfatherly figure, could be a source of emotional support that he’s been missing for so long (depending if his biological parents alive, the status of which is apparently a spoiler). But the glaring flaw in that idea is that Heimerdinger has consistently failed people throughout the story.

If we can briefly sidestep the way Heimerdinger’s leadership over 200 years has led to rampant inequality and a militarized police force meant to harass half of his city’s inhabitants, there’d still be Viktor. Sure Heimerdinger gave Viktor the position as his assistant at the prestigous Piltover Academy, but Viktor not only earned it, but was frustrated with it. Heimerdinger wasn't offering Viktor him new opportunities, just the frustration of administrative work. They likely knew each other for years, so when Viktor diagnosis gave him less than a year left, how does he comfort him. By telling him he won't be remembered after putting the breaks on his projects meant to help the half the side of the city constantly being poisoned like Viktor was.

We know characters will change next season so I can see Heimerdinger realizing he could do more for the people of Zaun with Ekko's help and understand urgency over caution more. I can see Ekko finding an adult to finally let in and help him. I can see it because Arcane as a series doesn't seem to investigate the power dynamics between Piltover and Zaun too deeply. Maybe Heimerdinger will offer him and all his friends admission into Piltover Academy to keep them safe, and he'll refuse for himself similar to his League origin story. Heimerdinger would still think that Piltover and Zaun could remain united through some flexible compromise, because he never looks at the root of the problem, which is Piltover.

Some theorize that when characters complete their arc, that's when they’re most likely to die. In Arcane, the most dangerous position to be in is when you care about someone and try to do the right thing, this show loves to kill characters for that. Ekko out of everyone is the one with the most to lose, especially people, so for him to vulnerable in this next season would lead to disaster. Ekko was already shot in the chest by Marcus after listening to Caitlyn and nearly blown up to save her and Vi. Then led Heimerdinger, a well known councilman, to his hideout. Frankly, it's in Ekko' best interest to distance himself from Heimerdinger because memories run long and resentment goes higher for Piltover, especially once they retaliate against Zaun. If it gets out Ekko has been surrounding himself with enforcers, a former councilman, a future councilman (Caitlyn), and a snitch (Vi), he's going to put his community at risk. Every time someone from Zaun tries to work with Piltover it's a disaster for the Zaunite, look at Vander and Silco. If he's going to risk himself and his community the consequences shouldn't be so one-sided. If Ekko is to survive next season either he needs to reject Heimerdinger’s ways or Heimerdinger has to change for Ekko to help Zaun for the better.

[random-basil-lover]

"Oh Basil acts so childish i hate him" "Oh Basil is so annoying" "ugh Basil is so scary he's crazy i hate him"

BASIL IS FUCKING TRAUMATISED. GUYS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, IF HE ACTS CHILDISH (which is something i don't agree with) MAYBE CONSIDER THAT HE IS 16??? WE TEENAGERS ARE CHILDISH AND STUPID ANYWAYS

BASIL HAS SEVERE PTSD AND POSSIBLE BPD, HE POSSIBLY HAS SQUIZOPHRENIA OR ANOTHER MENTAL HEALTH CONDITION THAT MAKES IT HARD FOR HIM TO LIVE AND CONTROL HIMSELF. HE IS DEPRESSED. HE IS HURT. JUST BECAUSE HE CAN HAVE WHAT YOU COULD CONSIDER A "NORMAL LIFE" DOESN'T MEAN THAT THE GUY IS FUCKING SUFFERING.

"But he's a fictional character, why so mad?"

Fictional. characters. are. based. off. of. real. life. Basil's struggles are struggles people have IN REAL LIFE, illnesses PEOPLE HAVE, maybe even Omocat or someone of the team experienced that themselves, who knows.

If you don't understand mental illnesses, don't judge and hate. If you think you understand them but instead you are hating on the "oh, no so romantic and poetic" parts that ruin your perception of mental health being "poetic and cool", you should reflect on yourself.

Some mentally ill people hardly shower. Some mentally ill people don't brush their teeth. Some mentally ill people smell bad. Some mentally ill people live in fear, can't control themselves. It's not their fault. They didn't choose to suffer.

Also, about Basil attacking "Sunny" in 1 day left... Let me make you be in his shoes: You're sixteen, your parents weren't there for you during almost your whole life, you have abandonment issues, the only friend you truly connected with abandoned you out of nowhere after you saw your girl friend dead, had to carry her, you feared of what might happen to your best friend if they find out, and you tried to help him, which takes you to carry and hang the dead body of SOMEONE YOU LOVED, all this at 12, which is extremely traumatic by itself. One of your former friends started bullying you for something you didn't do, but you decided to not tell her you didn't do it to protect your best friend. She calls you a creep, and some other people join to keep calling you hurtful things, they even attack you physically. Your best friend came back after four years, but still wasn't there for you when you were hallucinating and panicking. It's night, and you are going to kill yourself. Your friend arrives. It's frustrating, because your dearest friend is going to leave the next day, and you needed their support so much... So, why the hell is he here? Why is he showing up and then leaving again? Does he even care about you, about what you had to sacrifice for him? You're going to commit suicide, you are in a very vulnerable moment, you are scared, angry at many things, filled with self-hatred, and guilt. You're having/almost having a panic attack. After seeing your friend, these feelings intensify, and you can no longer control yourself with all the things you're feeling at that moment, it's overwhelming, you're not thinking straight. You yell at him because he is going to leave you again, because you are hurt, and, as i said, can't think straight. You start hallucinating, but you think it is real. It is the way your brain has been coping, trying to take the blame away from your dear friend. You want to kill that hallucination, that "something" that did all the bad things (like killing your other friend Mari). You don't understand why is Sunny struggling and in front of you all the time, you want to protect him from the hallucination, you want him to be safe. Once again, you think the hallucination is real. Then, you manage to stab the hallucination in the eye... Only to realise you actually stabbed your dearest friend. You didn't mean to. You wanted to protect him. More guilt. You pass out.

Doesn't that sound like a completely terrfying thing to go through? Just because you haven't suffered it doesn't mean you have to judge and hate on someone, fictional or not. Because if you went through that, i assure you you would not be thinking straight either, and you would've done something similar, or maybe... you would be dead already. Because those are 4 years of psychological torture. Not everyone can go through 4 years of psychological torture.

Thank you.

[yallemagne]

So, I was clued in by several references to Micheal Myers that the movie my brother was making me watch was a Halloween movie and, having never watched a single one, I went to the Wikipedia to catch up. I figured out through getting through all of the Wikipedia synopses that the film I was watching was the final one! Amazing.

Spoilers. Also, trigger warning: I hate slasher films. Not for moral reasons, so slasher nuts can put down their pitchforks. I just. Blech. But this film had a silver lining.

EDIT: I misspelt Allyson's name bc it was misspelt in the subtitles.

For a moment, at the beginning of the film, I thought maybe they were referencing Mikey as a horror movie icon, but that was not the case. I had been tricked-- HOODWINKED -- into watching a film from the Halloween series. But I couldn't walk away now!! I already sat down!!

I didn't care about the kid. Honestly the sheer amount of blood and also the weird way he fell took me out of the scene. I was half like "was this staged by the kid, too?"

Corey was already giving me vibes of an anxious teen who messed up in the past, and like this was the only chance he has to show he's a good guy, and like that was the reason he was panicking so hard in the attic? Anyway, whomp whomp. This is why you don't bully someone with anxiety in a horror film, kid.

Time skip, he gets bullied by some high schoolers and JAMIE LEE CURTIS appears to the rescue! The band kids are mean to her, so maybe they deserve-- just kidding lol. I'll call her Laurie from here on, she offers boyo a knife to fuck up the car. Wahoo.

His hand is messed up and Laurie's granddaughter is a nurse, what can go wrong? Introducing a young woman to a male main character in a horror film has neeeeeever led to predictable and blegh-y deaths ahahahah. But I was wrong in thinking she would be killed for making premarital eye contact, so that's neat.

And then someone makes premarital eye contact with Laurie and I'm like noooo oh he's gonna die too? seriously?? I don't even know this guy. But the writers did not hate me today.

Let's skip, so Corey gets thrown off a bridge because he called out someone's daddy issues and is pulled into some weird... sewer cave? I don't know what it is. I don't think Mikey did it, but I'll get to that. Corey wakes up and gets strangled by Mikey, but then he starts getting flashbacks to the worst day of his life, which I guess is symbolic of his mental break.

ONE LITTLE TANGENT. I hate how horror films villainize the mentally ill. And how apparently being mentally ill gives you superpowers. Maybe I should get evaluated just to see if I can raise a barn on my own. I know someone may scold me like "it's not black and white, there's no ableist messaging inherent to this genre, there is no war in Ba Sing Se", but you are wrong, bye.

Corey gets away but the homeless man I predicted would die jumps him and oh look. He's ~crazy~ too. But I guess he did not receive an official diagnosis because he does not come back to life after being killed. Also, I think maybe this guy is the one who dragged Corey into that place because of his obsession with Mikey, but that's minor.

Corey tells Allison he's a murderer. I was... pleasantly shocked they didn't start making out immediately. But she still stayed with him. And I wasn't fully paying attention because of my reading, but I seriously thought she knew he was doing even more murders, but apparently she... didn't? Even though they were people who inconvenienced her?

Corey meets Allison's ex and then lures him into Mikey's lair. Mikey gets knocked down and Corey yells at him to show him how to kill people. Mikey's like "okay shit" and stabs the guy a few more times than necessary just to make sure Corey understood. I was kinda cheering about boys night because that is exactly what this was.

The boys kill a doctor who was mean to Allison and the woman he's sleeping with, and I was like SERIOUSLY?? MOVIE??? I caught up in the Wikipedia and saw that apparently, the woman got a promotion because she was sleeping with him... but that's still killing a woman for having sex. Oh well. Also, the eye contact between the woman and Corey was weird, I thought, am I missing something here?? Eh.

Laurie confronts Corey, and she's so badass, and I love her so much. Tells him to back the fuck up. He refuses and tells her to go apeshit. OHHH DUDE. You do NOT WANT THAT. She literally vanished, and I was like "TOLD YOU SO BOY". I knew she wasn't gonna kill him right then, but I kept making *teleports behind you* jokes.

Since Corey is a wuss, he calls Allison up because he knows Laurie is gonna get his ass. Allison argues with Laurie that Corey isn't evil, and at this point, I genuinely thought she was gaslighting Laurie because HOW DOES SHE NOT KNOW??? But she truly didn't know that her boyfriend was JD.

Corey shows up at Mikey's hidey hole and they have a silly little tussle. It's so fucking funny. The boys are having a little wrestle! It's so silly. Corey steals Mikey's mask so he can be Mikey (his own mask wasn't cool enough) and kill a bunch of people. His stepdad is collateral damage, and I groaned so hard at his death. That man teleported into the bullet. Had to look away from the yucky ew because I don't trust my unconscious mind with gruesome imagery.

Laurie is amazing she is so cool. Corey tries to get her but she fuckin GETS HIM. She's so fucking badass I love her. Laurie is my bias.

Corey does the "if I can't have her, no one will" again and does a self-stabby to frame Laurie bc he knows he has his official diagnosis and he'll come back to life. In the meantime? Mikey has come to take his mask back. He permanently kills Corey by revoking his blessing (that's what I got from it at least) because no one kills his sister but him!!!

Laurie is fucking GREAT SHE FUCKING YES MAN. The foreshadowing of the exploding microwave and like boom man. I was cheering GET HIM LAURIE GET HIM. He tries to get rid of her hand, she says "no sir I like that hand". She gets his mask off, and he's like "nooo you know how insecure I feel without the mask >:((((". So many knives. I mean so many knives get put into this man. He can fit so many. One is in his hand and he RIPS HIS HAND IN HALF to choke her after she slit his throat. I don't know how effective choking would be with a hand that fucked up but oh well.

"Do it pussy," she says as she's getting flashbacks to every previous movie, and I'm so happy I watched none of them and just this one. It's all I need. Allison comes in and slits his wrist. I was groaning. "Come on, you think that will work? What next? Is the blood gonna start seeping back into his cuts?" But apparently bloodletting keeps him down for a while.

Cops show up, "Micheal" "He's dead" "Not dead enough", THANK YOU ALLISON I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

There's this big procession of cars, everyone's there. We cut to several faces that would be familiar if I watched anything else in this series. I was like "oh my god it's just like End Game. Everyone's here and I don't care"

BUT GUESS WHAT? THEY THREW MIKEY IN THE SHREDDER!!! No fake outs, no Mikey getting up and murdering an entire town, HE WAS SHREDDED!! YESSSSSSSSSS! BEST MOVIE!!

I was a little bit in doubt. It's a slasher film, after all.

Allison tells Laurie that she believes her that Corey was bad now bc she just watched Heathers and took some notes.

There was a knock on the door or a ring of the doorbell, I don't remember, and I'm like "better not fucking be Corey, he got his privileges revoked".

It wasn't, it was Laurie's boyfriend. Oh yay. That man didn't die.

Okay. My attitude towards death in slasher films? I just like when unimportant characters aren't killed for the sake of it. It pleases me because it subverts my expectations. With films like these, you can only really trust that a character will survive if they are a murderer, which bores me. I like innocent randos living against the odds.

They cut to every room in the house, and I know that it was to show "look at all these rooms that were destroyed, now they are back to normal" but... Laurie... please move. Also I was expecting Mikey in any one of those rooms, but there was only his mask kept as a trophy, I assume. WHAT THE FUCK SHRED THAT, TOO. The continued existence of the mask is sequel bait, I know it's literally called "The End" but I have trust issues.

So? Pros? Okay, loved Corey and Mikey's relationship, it was funny. Just a couple of rowdy boys tussling in the sewer cave. Laurie is my bias. THEY SHREDDED MIKEY!!!!! YESSSSS!!!! Cons? I CAN IGNORE THEM BC THEY SHREDDED MIKEY!!!!

[duhragonball]

Yeah, Evangelion isn't really a show about the action. I'd say an accurate summary of it is "what if you had to pilot robots against monsters, but all the characters have mental illness?" It's got some neat action for sure, but that's not the focus of the narrative at all, really.

And that's fine. I didn't go into this expecting a lot of action! If this show is Shinji getting therapy then bring it on, but that's not what's happening. He's just laying there like a pile of mashed potatoes, and everyone remarks on how mashed-potato-like he is! For three episodes!

The action scenes are basically all I've got for amusement, but they aren't enough to carry the show because they were never meant to. But what is carrying the show? You can't just write "He's mentally ill" on a 3-by-5 card and put it on the screen for fifteen minutes and call it a story.

Let me use an example of what I'm talking about. There's an episode of M*A*S*H called "Hawk's Nightmares", where Hawkeye starts sleepwalking through the camp, and when other characters find him he acts like a kid, playing marbles and basketball and talking to them like his childhood friends. Then when he finally goes back to bed he wakes up screaming because he saw his childhood friends dying horribly.

About halfway into the episode Colonel Potter calls a psychologist, Sidney Freeman, to get to the bottom of this, and Hawkeye talks it out with him. Ultimately his nightmares are a symptom of the larger trauma of the Korean War, so there's no easy fix, but at least Hawkeye understands what's happening to him, which gives him some reassurance. Sidney tells him he's not losing his mind. "If you were crazy, you'd sleep like a baby."

This is a single half-hour episode of television. Is it a thorough examination of mental health problems? No, of course not. Sidney makes several more appearances on the show, often for Hawkeye specifically, which kind of makes you realize that maybe Hawk isn't the "sanest person [Sidney has] ever known". The psychological analysis may not have aged well, since it's a 50-year-old TV show about a 70-year-old war.

But it's effective as a story because it introduces a problem and immediately draws in the viewer. You can't not notice Hawkeye playing hopscotch in the middle of the night. It's impossible for the other characters to ignore him when he tries to place a phone call in the middle of the night to his childhood friends to make sure they didn't explode like they did in his dreams. And the other characters do something about it. When they can't help him on their own, they call in an expert. They have to. He's their friend, and they need him in the O.R. to save wounded soldiers.

I think Evangelion is following a similar arc, but-- good night!-- it sure isn't in much of a hurry. And if Shinji were shooting free-throws in his sleep, that would be at least kind of amusing to watch while we wait, but he's not. He's practically catatonic. If there was another character to focus on instead, that would be something, but all we have is Rei, who seems to be even worse off than he is.

What kills me is that they're going to get into this eventually. They have to. There's no other choice. So why don't we just do that instead of marking time? I'm an hour into this show, and I feel like I'm watching an unskippable ad for Kroger while I'm waiting for a YouTube video to start.

[scarletwitching]

If you could rewrite several things about Wanda, what would they be?

I think I have rather basic preferences in terms of which comics are Bad and Should Not Have Happened. Certain things are obviously offensive and published during times when Marvel editors were letting writers do whatever, and that sucks. John Byrne? Sucks. Do not like him. I'm not the first to point out that continuity, for all its joys, negatively impacts female and minority characters in disproportionate ways. Beyond the big, obvious answers though, I don't especially want to erase much. It's all part of the tapestry, and the pick-and-choose nature of the canon means I don't have to care about most of it anyway.

My unique-to-me answer is that Marvel has done some reprints of old Avengers comics where they recolored Wanda's hair from black to red, and that should be stricken from the record. Stop this redhead propaganda! Give her her black hair back!

I realize that's not a rewrite, strictly speaking, but...

Maybe a more satisfying way to look at your question is, if I could start over from the beginning, what would I do? Tom Brevoort said in a recent newsletter that writers frequently pitch a do-over/restart of the Ultimate Universe (see also), so if I were to pitch a fresh reboot of the Marvel Universe, what would my pitch for Wanda be?

There is not much from the original Ultimate Universe that I consider worth keeping. This, maybe, if only for laughs. I don't love the probability powers, mostly because they don't make sense and not in a fun magic way, but I am amused that they accidentally make her a math savant. I wouldn't care about keeping that aspect one way or the other. She can be a math genius. She can not be a math genius. I do not care. There's nothing else worth even mentioning in Ults (and I'm not getting into rewrites for The Movies, even though any actual comics reboot would naturally be influenced by them, because we don't have time to get into All That), so that leaves us with the main universe to pull from.

First rewrite: The Brotherhood of Mutants are not evil. They're not villains.* They've just separated themselves from human society. I am so tired of "the villain has good ideas, but they've got to kill a puppy to prove that you shouldn't question the status quo TOO much." They can be a foil to the X-Men. They can be allies with ideological differences (maybe leading to the formation of Krakoa or some other island nation at a later date). But no more of that same fucking villain plot. It's tired. Do something different.

If you're introducing a new version of Wanda, she should start out as a teenager by default, and personality-wise, I think 70's Englehart is the way to go. Strong personality. Not a wallflower. Kind of bossy, not the biggest fan of humans. She can change over time, but that's a good starting place. Be creative with her powers, however you define them. No omnipotence shit. Let the inventiveness take the spotlight.

That's a good foundation to go off of and potentially launch into stories about the Avengers and whatnot. I'm not so worried about the precise backstory details (I wouldn't get rid of Django, but the specifics are not too much of a concern). I guess my overall rewrite is digging into the mutant separatist thing from a more modern angle, emphasizing creativity over raw power, and giving her the Englehartian personality from the start, along with the easy stuff like more respectful portrayal of her background and not doing the truly awful mental illness/trauma portrayals. There's a million other little details to get into from there, but this answer is already long.

*If I have another pointless rewrite to add to the main universe, it's that they have to stop saying she started out as a villain. No, she did not. Abused children are not supervillains. Stop saying this nonsense.

[bindi-the-skunk]

There are other ways to make LxG film fics "closer to the comics" other than making Hyde a rapist, which, in the end, was done for no reason but to make Hyde seem more evil, heck, freaking Griffin in the comic was a pedophile raping schoolgirls and shit.

It serves no purpose, especially if you want us to at least partialy stomach them as part of the hero group and comic!Jekyll seemed like the type who couldn't even take a piss without asking permission first, much less have RAPE fantasies he wishes to live out through Hyde.

Hyde IS Jekyll, don't give us this weak and pathetic worm of a man and expect us to believe a rapist cannibal erupted from him! (And no just because Movie!Jekyll has more agency does not mean he can be labled a better canidate for a rapist, when sources say it is his TEMPER that made Hyde, not lust or anything like that) it serves no purpose to do this and should only be reserved for characters who will later get their testicles burnt off in a beaker of acid.

Nemo's comic version was very much a psychotic blood knight, perhaps have him enjoy fighting a few baddies a bit TOO much and start to slip back into his own ways and has to be pulled back by the rest of the League.

Heck, this could even apply to NemoxJekyll fics, Henry is BRITISH, from a people who Nemo spent almost his whole life despising and wanting dead (women and children might be an exeption to this given his movie reaction to the idea of using them as hostages as "monsterous" but movie!Nemo has a moral compass that seems like it would work most of the time)

Since even comic!Nemo paid Jekyll a compliment on his genius (and I don't think Captain Nemo of all people would use that word lightly) but I can see him sometimes slipping back into old habits on bad days, not out of malice, but old habits die hard as they say, and book!Nemo already suffered from a mental break once, so he could have moments of coldness despite legitamitly loving his new friends or drama from Jekyll thinking he might just be a replacement for Ishmael (or in MinaxHenry fics thinking he is a replacement for Jonathan) instead of being loved for himself

Movie!Quartermain could have had a drug habit after losing his wife and son, but got clean by the time of the movie but someone tries to lure him back into that life by bringing up bad memories

There are ways to make the story itself "darker' without having to go the rape route, or if there is rape, kindly do not make it someone we are supposed to ENJOY watching or reading about.

Or if you did wanted to toe other issues, Sawyer could mistake one of Nemo's crew for Injun-Joe in the dark and panic, having to explain the story and maybe bringing up his friend Huck helping a runaway slave (Sawyer did not seem racist in the film despite when he was supposed to come from so PTSD not racism would be the cause of the fear)

Or Nemo letting Janni think he is dead because he feels she would be happier that way (do people just assume ALL foriegn parents are sexist assholes to their girls? I do admit that several families are awful to girls, but I'm sure not ALL were like that even back when the story takes place, and especially not in modern!AU) And Movie!Nemo did not seem to mind Mina at all even before she revealed the ability to rip out necks, and even saved her life in the library scene )

Tom seems like the sunshine child, but he would be a PTSD ridden MESS after what he has gone though in both the book and in the canon backstory of his best buddy Huck finn being KILLED pre-movie )

Mina has lost EVERYTHING, her husband, her humanity and perhaps even her child and other friends from either time, illness or wanting to keep them safe from her condition, her taking Dorian and possibly others as lovers admittedly sounds on the surface like a woman embracing her sexuality and not fearing it.

And yes that can be seen as true, or you can look at her like another version of Nora Fries from the Harley Quinn show, as in taking lovers as a way to disconnect from the pain of losing her husband

So many ideas but people just choose to fall back on rape…ughhh

sorry just needed to rant...

[can-i-see-your-passport-please]

I'm just gonna copy paste my propaganda from last time

Alright, here we go. Spoilers for the entirety of HLVRAI, which I highly recommend watching. And for the annoying fandom people who are like sixteen who think I can't interpret Benrey sympathetically because something something innacurate (because they'll probably see this if this circulates in the fandom even though i have them blocked some of my moots follow them), I'm soooo sorry you hate fun that must be soooooo hard for you lol

Gonna be separating stuff by lines and bolding important sentences to make it easier to keep track of where you are, since I have ADHD and I need that fjkdnskjfndsj

@doomed-bythe-narrative

Now, I'm going to start this off by arguing that Gordon is the narrative in HLVRAI. And if not that, he is the central point of the narrative. I say this because in Act 3, we learn that whenever Gordon goes to sleep, the world just fucking stops. It basically ends until he wakes up again. And like... Why wouldn't it? He's the player character! HLVRAI is, in-universe, a game, and all the characters are AIs. Gordon is literally the only person who's not an AI. The world exists for Gordon to play in it. We are literally seeing EVERYTHING through his eyes. The code is not the narrative. Hell, the GAME isn't even the narrative. GORDON is.

So, the plot of HLVRAI is basically the plot of Half Life, with four very silly AI and an incredibly neurotic man with several unmedicated mental illnesses slapped on top of it, and this man is herding them along like sheep whilst filled with the fear of death while the team could get crushed in half and then come back fine (AND THEY DO). Team keeps dying, main character is filled with anxiety and fear, shenanigans, betrayal, and existential crises ensue. It's the funniest thing I've ever watched in my life, 10/10, it's also a masterpiece of writing despite being improv.

Alright, so Benrey… Benrey.

---

Now, through HLVRAI, Gordon has this consistent rivalry with Benrey. Well, maybe rivalry is the wrong word. Throughout the series, Gordon kinda dislikes Benrey. Constantly murdering him, pinning him to the wall that one time, being a dick to him... And Benrey is (and I say this with love) annoying as hell. He's constantly following Gordon around and asking for his passport and jokingly not allowing him entry to anywhere (and also in act 4 he starts flirting with him like crazy).

And the thing is... Gordon was like that towards Benrey from the start. Benrey wasn't super antagonistic towards Gordon- he was just doing his job. And yeah, it's nonsensical, but HLVRAI is nonsensical. This is a series where one of the characters canonically slurps up piss and has clones he needs to kill to get more powerful. This is a series where a man was grown in a fucking tube. This is a series where the team wipes out the US military except for one guy who just wanted to graduate, and it's because he left to go watch IrateGamer videos. Benrey's motivations- inhuman creature chasing around his crush so he can get his passport- are tame in comparison to the shit the others do all the fucking time. (At least unless you count his monologue as factual.)

---

But anyway, back to Gordon and Benrey. Gordon and Benrey's personalities clash horribly under the circumstances- Gordon DESPERATELY needs everyone to STAY FUCKING FOCUSED THEY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A WARZONE THOSE ARE NOT FUCKING ROPES THEY ARE GOING TO FUCKING EAT YOU DO NOT DRINK THE GREEN GOOP, but he's surrounded by four deranged guys (AT LEAST three of which are a decade or more older than him) who keep running into danger and coming back over and over.

And while Benrey isn't as danger seeking as the rest of the team (only in theory and if you don't have my lore), he's still very capable of being very annoying. If being annoying was a job, Benrey would- okay in this economy he would still be working minimum wage but he would be fuckin fantastic at his job. And he loves annoying Gordon specifically.

So, what we have here is an incredibly stressed out man who is in desperate need of some fuckin help, terrified of dying, trying desperately to keep the TEAM from dying, versus the most annoying inhuman Thing you've ever seen who just does not care about mortality because he always comes back. They were fucking DESIGNED to bounce off each other in a bad way- hell, their color schemes are opposite! Benrey's text color, shirt, and pants are all shades of blue, while Gordon walks around in a bright orange suit. Blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel- even down to their fuckin COLORS, they are OPPOSITES.

Now, as a reminder: in this analysis propaganda thing, Gordon is the narrative. And Benrey is doomed by the narrative. So under these circumstances, with these clashing personalities, with Gordon under this level of stress, with Benrey being the chill individual he is... They were kinda destined to be nemeses.

---

Yet under different circumstances, I believe with my whole heart that they could have been friends.Throughout the series, despite how often Gordon says he hates Benrey, he laughs at his jokes so much. And when Benrey gets in danger, he yells for him to get out of the way. Fuck, there's a part in Act 2 where he says Benrey's Sweet Voice is beautiful. There's a part of him, somewhere, that genuinely cares about Benrey, even if it's buried under layers of stress and fear.

In fact I have some level of proof that they could've been friends- in the cast commentaries, there are noncanonical intros to each one that are basically the characters chatting, and the fourth one is basically Benrey and Gordon fucking around in a bathroom.

Gordon has just killed Benrey semi-permanently, the tension should be astronomically high. And yet... it's not. Benrey sounds happier than at any point in the whole series, and Gordon sounds like he is smiling. The entire scene, he sounds like he's just smiling. They're just being silly together, even as the music is (presumably) meant to sound at least a little threatening, it's just not. The scene's just cute.

And my second piece of evidence: there's an additional stream to HLVRAI called the ACAB stream where the team basically goes to rob a bank. And Benrey at this point is supposed to be dead, but instead he invades the group, briefly fills their brains with bees, and reunites with them.

And Gordon doesn't try to do any shit to him. He explicitly tells Benrey he WON'T FIGHT HIM, even when Benrey dares him to 1v1 him. And their relationship seems... lighter. Less stressful. Benrey's still being a menace, yeah, he chases Gordon with a knife at one point because he's a little bastard, but Gordon isn't scared of him. He's laughing, they're being just... really silly!!

My point is: GORDON COULD'VE BEEN FRIENDS WITH BENREY. If they'd met a little earlier, if it'd been less stressful, if Benrey had been more helpful, if, if, if. If circumstances had been different, in any way, they could have been good friends.

The circumstances in which the narrative took place doomed Benrey to not be able to be Gordon's friend.

Which in turn doomed Benrey to be the villain.

-

In Act 3, Benrey and Bubby conspire to get Gordon jumped by the military. Why exactly is unconfirmed, and I'm not dragging my not-based-in-canon headcanons into this. And at first, it's going well (for them, not for Gordon).

But then they cut off Gordon's arm. Which Bubby seems shocked by... and so does Benrey.

If you haven't watched HLVRAI, Benrey isn't very emotive with his voice, to very comedic effect (and it's even funnier when he IS emotive with his voice). But he sounds shocked by this. He sounds like he didn't fucking expect the soldiers to do that.

Now, even if it hadn't gone wrong to the point of CUTTING OFF GORDON'S FUCKING ARM, this definitely would've fucked up Gordon and Benrey's relationship. But the arm thing definitely sealed it. Like, his mental health gets SO MUCH WORSE after the betrayal. He's undeniably traumatized. I'm not going to explain HOW much worse it gets, because that's off-topic and would probably trigger at least one person reading this, but... Holy fucking shit it's bad. So yeah, Gordon was justified in hating Benrey after that. Yet that shock in Benrey's voice implies to me HE DID NOT WANT THE ARM THING TO HAPPEN.

Was Gordon justified? Yes, absolutely. Did Benrey mean to do that? I don't know. Leaning towards the answer being no.

And this gets sold to me by Bubby.

-

When Gordon finds Bubby in his tube and asks him about Benrey, Bubby has this line where he... defends Benrey. He tells Gordon that the soldiers told him to help as well, which, at least to me, implies that Benrey was not, in fact, the orchestrater of the whole thing, the mastermind behind it all. Rather, the FUCKING US MILITARY made the plan and got Benrey to go along with it. Benrey didn't organize it with the soldiers (in fact, the jump is a part of Half Life canon, so he definitely didn't), the soldiers organized it and got him to help.

And, let me just set your expectations: Bubby is, and I say this with love, one of the most selfish members of the team. He's an absolute piece of shit, he's a coward, he SUCKS and I LOVE him. This isn't to say that he doesn't care about the team- he does, just look at his relationship with Tommy. But even so, he is INCREDIBLY SELFISH.

So let me ask you this: what reason would he have to defend Benrey here?

He could just not! He could've just thrown Benrey under the bus! Pinned all the blame on him, rather than the military! Said he was the one who made the plan, he was the one who decided for him to get his arm cut off. And like, those could've been reasonable conclusions for him to come to! And it's not like Gordon wouldn't have believed him! He would've! It could've gotten Bubby MORE on Gordon's side! It makes every sense that the most selfish member of the team would've pinned all the blame on

And yet he didn't. He chose to defend Benrey even so. He has no reason to. He has every reason not to. Yet he does.

And Gordon tells him that sounds like a fucking fantasy. For understandable reasons, like, let me make it clear: I'm not blaming Gordon for being angry at Benrey. He had just gotten his arm cut off by the guy, he'd been annoyed at him the whole time, he's justified in being pissed at him.

But still... even when being told by the most selfish guy in the team that Benrey's not the villain, the narrative continues to doom him to that fate.

-

In the second half of Act 4 Part 1, they're heading to a space dimension called Xen to kill... "a single powerful being." (When an NPC tells Gordon that, he looks over at Benrey.) This will end the Rescas and most likely save the world.

And Benrey doesn't want them to go. He keeps telling them to go back. They should go back, they're "going further into hell", they should sleep, they need to go sleep, they can't go in that room because there aren't any beds.

Yet they continue anyway.

He seems to know what will happen on Xen. And what happens is that Benrey becomes the final boss. He grows to massive size and follows the team around still, though he doesn't attack until they get to the final chamber, and even then his attacks are very sloppy.

And most believe that the reason he protested so much was that he knew that he was going to be the big bad, and didn't want to be that.

Further evidenced by one specific line.

-

In the finale, when Benrey has become the final boss and in the middle of a... very... strange monologue, Benrey says "i was supposed to be nice, but you made me bad, so i'm gonna be bad. friend."

Not "I want to be bad." Certainly not "I want to hurt you."

In fact, Benrey seems to NOT want to hurt them, AT ALL- there's a point where one of the characters is trapped by his skeleton friends, and he tells them to let him go. And there's one point in the boss fight where he yells at them "STOP SHOOTING AT ME, IF YOU SHOOT ME I HAVE TO SHOOT BACK! I DON'T WANNA DO THAT!" He explicitly TELLS THEM that he doesn't wanna hurt them!!

That's not what made Benrey the final boss. It wasn't a decision out of malice. He didn't do it because he wanted the team dead. If he did, he could've just fucking killed the team. He was 40 feet tall. He could have just fucking crushed them.

So why?

"You made me bad."

The narrative.

-

Benrey never had a choice.

He is the complete opposite of Gordon, the fucking narrative. And while under different circumstances they could've been friends, this was the wrong place and the wrong time for them to meet. Even if the betrayal had never happened, even if Benrey had just been an annoying guy the whole time, at no point during the Rescas could Gordon have ever seen Benrey as the good guy.

From the very first scene, where Benrey approached Gordon and asked if he had his passport, the tone was a ball of stress bouncing off a wall of chillness. And like that, they couldn't have been friends. Under the circumstances of an apocalyptic situation where Gordon was trying desperately to survive while Benrey, a presumably immortal, unkillable, constantly annoying force kept pestering him, they could not have been friends.

And the game is shaped around Gordon. Gordon is the fucking narrative.

Benrey couldn't have been anything other than the antagonist.

He was doomed from the start.

Doomed by the Narrative: SEMIFINALS - 2

[catboy-jaebeom]

So I just watched Stray and Jin's story hit home so hard I got whiplash. I am 25 and because of mental and physical health issues, I can't afford to move out, cause I have medical bills to pay. And living for 25 years with people who were supposed to protect and love me, only to be denigrated and psychologically abused by them... I empathized with Jin so much. He did nothing wrong, and he was NOT a monster. But having been abused and abandoned by his mother, ofc he ended up believing her venomous words. He didn't deserve to go down like that. In fact, he deserved to be loved and accepted for who he is, a beautiful boy who was still obviously trying to do right by his sister. He deserved to get the help he desperately needed, and he deserved to be treated with respect and kindness. I cried so hard watching that movie. It's horrible to be abused by one's very parents. And it does lead to self-loathing and trust issues. At least it did in my case.

hey anon!

first off, I'm so sad you are suffering like this >< whoever you are, I wish you to be able to get out of that situation as soon as is possible. perhaps try and reach out to friends or professionals if that is available to you. you deserve love, safety and patience, please don't ever forget that!

I feel you though. I won't go into detail, but I too have suffered from abuse a couple of times in my life, including from my parents, and when I watched STRAY and got to the end I felt absolutely heartbroken and betrayed. Jin deserved better, just as you say - and so do we. I got attached to him, and I saw myself in him even if my situations were never that severe. to see him get killed and betrayed by the sister he simply wanted to connect with ??

like, I get that murder isn't the answer, I get that you're still responsible for the damage you do because of your mental issues, but I understood why he did it. I understood why he snapped. honestly, Nori being like you need to turn yourself in just made me so mad. of course, in a way, she's right, but also ?? what would being locked up in jail improve ? especially in the US in this case ? he'd likely have to serve for life after those two murders, right ? either way, what he needed would've been to get the help to work through all the trauma he's suffered. or, you know, for the sister to like. actually try and calm him down instead of getting him locked up.

of course, he's a fictional character - and his abilities aren't mundane, so help and such would've been difficult to give to him - and as such it's important to try and see what kind of story STRAY wanted to tell and what part Jin played in that.

but that kind of trope is so old and still so painful to watch. the mentally ill, often horribly abused character dying or getting killed to conclude the movie? instead of writing a story about change and life - which would've worked so well here ?? - and being your own person who's making their own decisions ?? the potential and the base was all there, but that wasn't what the director decided to tell and it saddens me to the absolute core.

especially because Nori herself had been sheltered all her life. she could've been the light in that darkness Jin was stumbling through ever since his keishou had awoken. they could've healed together. could've searched for their roots together.

Joe Sill himself said on the premiere that Jin's magic comes from a place of hate and abuse, while Nori's stems from a place of love and support, and I'm just saying that he could've explored that too ? maybe Jin could've been 'saved' ? maybe all he'd have needed would've been patience and love and effort ?? he didn't seem at all unwilling to talk to her and to build a life with her? he even came back to ask his mother - the mother who'd abused and abandoned him 20 years ago - to accept him again, to ask her for forgiveness; he was ready to leave this all behind and start anew - which is such an accurate portrayal of that sort of abuse, too - so there's nothing to say he wouldn't have been willing to change, and with that his magic (if that's canonically possible, of course, but that's never said so, you know).

basically, the bottomline is that a lot of the time the film spent cutting away from scenes that would've been nice and maybe even important to see, could've been used to explore that whole concept, to have them interact a lot more, and to find a better ending than basically telling every parental abuse survivor that their anger isn't valid and that they should rather be quiet than voice that grief.

I liked the concept, I loved the casting and the acting, and the cinematography in general - the movie is so beautiful to watch, ugh - but my gods. we all deserve better than that.

[suzythelie]

I posted 6 times in 2022

That's 6 more posts than 2021!

6 posts created (100%)

0 posts reblogged (0%)

I tagged 5 of my posts in 2022

Only 17% of my posts had no tags

#abuse survivor - 3 posts

#complex ptsd - 3 posts

#bipolar 2 - 3 posts

#mental disorder - 3 posts

#mental health - 3 posts

#ptsd - 2 posts

#bipolar mania - 2 posts

#stranger things - 1 post

#mental illness - 1 post

#bipolar disorder - 1 post

Longest Tag: 16 characters

#bipolar disorder

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Recovering from narcissist abuse,and severe ptsd. Im bipolar and im just barely hanging on. Some days go by ok and some days I hide and cry all day. I scream on the inside so no one hears me, I smile because I dont want anyone to know how bad I feel. The sun doesn't shine on me and the darkness is not where I want to be. I never want anyone to know how bad I'm hurting, but sometimes its to much. I feel so lost and um looking for something anything that makes me feel better. I dont want sympathy, I dont want to blame anyone, I just want to be able to stand on my own two feet and feel worthy of life.

0 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

#4

Today I hate myself! I slept to long, I are the wrong food, im gaining weight when I need to lose. My head hurts from crying, my knees hurt from praying to God to help me find peace. I want to scream and throw something breakable. I want so much to be ok and stop feeling this way. How am I so old and still so stupid. Why do I always choose to care. I let him hurt me over and over so many times that when he left for good I just knew he would come back. I took steps to make sure he would never hurt me again. Steps that I knew he would not be able to accept, I didnt want him back. I was to scared that I would keep allowing him to hurt me until he went to far.i didn't know he was a narcissist for sure. The day he told me he was marring a girl half our age it was like he took all of the air out of my lungs and held his hand over my mouth so I couldn't get more. Now she is his victim and im living in a nightmare. Im scared of the whole world. I cant ever be with someone like him again but everyone I meet seems to be like that. So it must be me. So what do I do. I put on a smile and I pray to God above please don't let me fall in love today everyday. It would kill me.

1 note - Posted October 19, 2022

#3

I want to write a book and I need some help. I dont even know where to start actually.

1 note - Posted August 19, 2022

#2

I had never heard the word "narcissist " before and I really didn't know what it meant. About six months into my relationship with him my daughter said to me" mom he is a Narcissist and he will only hurt you" I kinda laughed it off and I didn't really think about it again. When he beat me up and threw me out of his car in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain only to come back and get me 45 minutes later, my friend at work told me he was a "narcissist " but I still didn't know what that meant. In today's society everyone has a label label. Im bipolar and i have ptsd, so saying someone is a narcissist didn't really bother me. Fast forward about 4 years. He had completely taken over my life. He gave me my medication because he had if locked in a box so I couldn't get it or even see what hd was giving me. I couldn't see my children unless he was with me. I felt empty and alone, but a narcissist? Maybe? Was he a narcissist or was I for wanting to have things my way for a day or two. Was it his fault or mine for letting him say whatever, do whatever and still believe he loved me. Whose fault was it? I honestly didn't know!

4 notes - Posted December 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Being a survivor means getting past the pain and hurt to a point that you can help people who haven't made it to that point. Hope and faith brings a person closer to living happiness again and never looking back to what happened wanting to go back. Its help you push forward and start over weather you're alone or not. Being alone is not a bad thing sometimes it make you strong so that you can let the person who is supposed to be in you life walk in and show you what real is.

7 notes - Posted November 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[lonelier-version-of-you]

What's the saddest holbyverse death in your opinion?

If we're defining "sad" as "made me the most upset and infuriated, and was ultimately pointless": Jac. Definitely Jac, no question. Before the Holby finale, I would've probably said Roxanna or maybe Noel or Zav. But, well... you can't really choose anyone who's not Jac now, can you? (And just look at the difference between how she was treated and how Henrik was treated. Both traumatised, mentally ill, bisexual-coded characters, but Henrik got to come out and got a happy ending and Jac got... that. Blatant misogyny.)

To get into more specifics (my answers are gonna be biased to 2017 onwards, because that's when I started watching both shows; character deaths feel different when you've actually known the characters and had no idea they were gonna die):

Holby:

Most infuriating, upsetting, "this is a terrible writing choice and I don't know what the fuck they were thinking" death: Again, Jac, followed by Roxanna and Zav. Jac is worse though because they threw a character with 17 years of history away out of spite. Honourable mention to Jasmine for several reasons, one of them being that the first episode I saw almost-in-full was her death. I got really attached to her right away and then... yeah.

Saddest "this is heartbreaking and makes me cry but it's a good end for the character and was well-written" death: Raf. Or Essie. Later Holby was short on these, what can I say? I think I'd also put John Gaskell in this category. Overall the writing for John got worse as the storyline went on, but the very end of his story? Perfect and hit all the right notes. A beautiful tragedy. Thank goodness for Andy Bayliss.

Casualty:

Most infuriating, upsetting, "this is a terrible writing choice and I don't know what the fuck they were thinking" death: Series 35 started with one of these and ended with two of them. Noel in the premiere, Fenisha and Lev in the finale. (Sorry, I know it's unpopular to criticise Noel's death because it was in the widely beloved COVID special, but I hated it. It felt a lot like Jac's - throwing a character with years of history away for nothing.) All three deserved so much better. Noel's death might have been worth it if the show had actually cared about him in the aftermath and used it to send a message. But they didn't, so... if anything they moved on from him so quickly that it felt like "oh, people who die from COVID won't be missed!", which surely contradicts the point the special claimed to make?

And Fenisha and Lev. Agh. Two great characters played by two brilliant actors, axed for some cheap, sensationalist drama. Fenisha was just about to get married and had a young son. Lev was just beginning to accept his sexuality. And then the show did... that. They used Fenisha's death for some cheap Ethan manpain (as though Ethan didn't have enough pain already!), and they killed off Lev in a textbook Bury Your Gays while letting his abusive, homophobic wife live. Just a disgusting story move.

Saddest "this is heartbreaking and makes me cry but it's a good end for the character and was well-written" death: Erm, I don't know. I can't really think of any. Maybe Cal? I guess I could also say Duffy, but I feel like she falls in between these two categories. I hear Jeff also fell into this category, but I'm the one person who's never seen "Born Lucky", so I wouldn't know.

Oh! Oh, wait, hang on, I just remembered Glen. Definitely Glen. He's my answer in this category. Those episodes were brilliant.

[theclaravoyant]

1. FSperception anon. If you think this is going to hurt anybody feel free to cut it or not to answer. I have now so little faith in AoS writers to make it better, now it seems for me like simple torture porn. In the past they were not so good at dealing with mental trauma. Maybe they will kill this "beyond redemption" Fitz, use "innocent" cryoFitz and Jemma as the only possible healer (I don't like the idea) to somehow get out in such a short time, or they will find a genius clever solution...

2. … we’ll see, but for now I don’t expect them to deal properly with it. Ad: the previous answer, before this disturbing episode (thank you:), I will definitely visit @leofitznetwork, but about “being part of the admin team” (even bigger thank you, it’s very nice to get such a proposal), sorry, I will not take a chance with my bad English and lack of talent for gifs:(

-

Hello again, and thanks for your patience and understanding with this ask.

I am also struggling to have faith in the writers after this decision. They were going quite well until that “plot twist” which, to me, doesn’t make sense (with what the ‘fear dimension’ is) AND tortured Daisy for no real reason AND villainised Fitz and demonised his mental illness. The last 10 or so minutes of that episode make me want to tear my hair out!! I’m honestly struggling to see how they’re going to fix it to my satisfaction (spoiler alert; so far I haven’t thought of a winning idea) but I do have a few ideas about where I think they’re going (not what I want, really, but lbr that ship has most definitely sailed!)

Several of my ideas revolve around what you’ve suggested, where this version of Fitz dies. It’s a very common redemption trope, first of all, but it also makes sense with a couple of things they’ve been setting up: eg., Fitz could see taking on Coulson’s deal/debt with Ghost Rider as a way of saving Coulson (and ‘paying back’ his debt to Daisy). They could also be intending to draw a parallel between the end(ish) of this season and the end of season 1, with Fitz harking back to the idea that “you can choose right now to be good” and sacrificing himself in some other way (maybe taking Daisy’s place). This also ties in with what I don’t see as his morality but which they recently used, which is the idea that one life is better than two. Perhaps both him and Daisy are in danger and this time, one last time, he has Daisy’s back, sort of thing. This would break the loop, they’d resurrect cryoFitz (bc he doesn’t have to go to the future now) and continue on their merry way and make sure Fitz gets meds and therapy and sleep (*sarcastic laughter*)

(Or, maybe, Daisy saves him and sacrifices herself instead - which ties into the inevitability of it bc he tried to save her so she saved him and the same thing ended up happening, and/or relates to something future!Fitz said in one of the older flashbacks, about how “she knew what it would mean / what would happen and she did it anyway” - he was supposed to be mad at her in that scene, but it seemed out of place to me. It would make more sense if there was this element of grief to it because if he had sacrificed himself it would have broken the loop, but her doing it means they got stuck. Then the problem for the writers becomes how to break the damn loop!)

I also feel weird about that last scene because of the whole “in order to do this we’re going to have to get more brutal” element. Are they shitting me? Imo that goes against the ethos of Shield (at least what the show is aiming for anyway) and especially what they were pushing at the beginning of this season, going super hard on the idea of compassion. Them going back in time and then starting this whole “we’re going to have to be more brutal” thing could be the start of it all (and maybe that’s why they felt they had to do it and it felt so heavy handed). I’d love if the team realised that and then went, “no wait, compassion is the answer!” and fixed it. Fitz would be a good character to do that with, so maybe they saw that and thought they had to fuck up his compassion compass to make it work. (They didn’t. But anyway). Maybe that would be too obvious, but then again, clearly what I actually want or would do is way too complex!!

I’m pretty sure this Fitz will probably die. If nothing else, they’re a bit of a fan of redemption by death on this show (when they’re not completely against it), but also, it would still allow them to be dramatic af and mess around with the timelines so we get heaps of drama and no consequences. (Which can be great fun, but at the moment, imo, is as you said - it’s basically torture porn).

They’re not going to have the solution be to go back in time and make sure Fitz takes his meds and gets some sleep, that’s for sure. We’re in for a lot more plot-driven flash-bang nonsense imo. And a whoooole heap of tying Fitz’s trauma, flaws, character and redemption into the FS relationship from the looks of things. Whoooo ((sarcasm)). Although it does also look like they’re going somewhere with FitzDaisy, and I sincerely hope they handle that like a newborn freaking bird. They’ve not been great at resolving their conflicts with dignity either the last couple of times, they just sort of handwave like “oh yeah so they made up it was nice”, so I’m on edge about how they’re going to handle this one too. It’s really important to me that they get it right, especially since this whole season I’ve been waiting for them to unfuck the Framework and they seem to be doubling down instead. Not happy, Jan.

Anywaaaay sorry for that slightly off-topic ramble, I have a lot of thoughts in my head about all this, but long story short, I share your feelings and concerns. I’m also going to be happy to celebrate the Fitz that I love over at the Net when I get the chance. I’ll be glad to have your visits and support, even if you don’t want to be an admin. Thanks again for the ask, for sharing your concerns with me and being patient with me in answering. I hope you have a good week, and that this show treats us (and our faves) better in the coming episodes!

[seiikas]

Hello! I need to catch up on Naruto and I would like to know since you are a fan of Sasuke why do you like his character ? I often think Sasuke is misunderstood by a lot of people, myself I have sometimes a hard time understanding him but I find him interesting ! Hope this question don't bother you, have a good day! :)

Hi! Don’t worry, your question doesn’t bother me at all! My reply is under the readmore. I’m sorry that it got so gigantic! It almost turned into a novel lol. It also may contain mild spoilers so please proceed with caution :)

One of the reasons I like him is because he’s human. Sasuke went through extreme trauma and mental torture at the age of 9, received absolutely no treatment or therapy for it, and was sent to live by himself in the same house his parents were murdered in. He didn’t get any help to deal with his trauma as he grew up. Would a normal human be able to get over such a thing simply because they found friends? to me the fact that Sasuke still suffers and is so affected by his trauma is what makes him realistic. He always needs to rely on a big life goal, put all of his thoughts and efforts into it, whether it’s revenge or justice or redemption, because if he doesn’t have one, it would be just him and his trauma to focus on, and would anyone be able to actually live like that? To me it’s amazing that Sasuke was even able to go on living by himself, to go to school and study and even find emotional attachment to people, protect them and sacrifice himself for them.

In general, most humans aren’t simply good or bad. The majority of us can be kind and generous while still being mean and selfish at times. We can be strong and still have moments of absolute weakness. The majority of us struggle with our mental illnesses and don’t just “get over it”, especially without any help. Sasuke is kind and selfless; he sacrificed himself for Naruto during the Haku fight, was ready to sacrifice himself again to save Naruto and Sakura during the Gaara fight, during the chuunin exams Kabuto pointed out how soft he was because he refused to attack him to get his scroll despite the fact that that’s what the exam required of him, in early shippuden he refused to kill anyone and ordered Taka not to kill, he learned how to extinguish the Amaterasu flames in order to save Karin, he threw himself in front of Sarada to protect her, he gave up on a peaceful life for himself for the sake of protecting their hard-earned world peace. But he also had times when he could be mean and selfish, when the pressure and the sadness were just too much, when he didn’t know how to deal with the trauma and the lies and the shock. And to me that’s a character that I can support, not because I think his mistakes were justified but because he’s not a messiah, he actually has to struggle with himself and his flaws, he has to fight against his trauma and his mental illnesses, which is what most humans are like instead of simply being wise and strong and flawless from the start.

What people fail to understand about Sasuke is that he’s a good person; that’s exactly the reason why his cruelty during the Gokage meeting arc was so shocking to every character in the story, because it was there to show that he wasn’t himself anymore; that’s exactly why the explanation of the “Uchiha curse” exists; and yet for some reason people tend to take that as being Sasuke’s actual personality, despite the fact that the manga had shown him in his normal state before, that we had actually gotten to see his gradual fall into darkness and his reason for it.

I like how Sasuke tends to be silent and distant on the outside but soft and kind on the inside. It’s thanks to him that team 7 gets accepted by Kakashi in the first place, because he decides to feed Naruto even though he was told not to. When he hears that Itachi is in the village, the first thing he worries about is Naruto’s safety, not his own safety or his own goals. He notices when Sakura is feeling down and comforts her by praising her abilities. He rarely ever expresses his feelings in words but he shows them with his actions; by sacrificing himself for someone, by protecting them, by showing pride towards their accomplishments, by gestures like the forehead poke. You’ll rarely find him saying cheesy things but if he cares about you and loves you, you’ll know. On the inside, he loves intensely. (Btw, how cute is it that he feeds cats and makes friends with them during his travels?)

Another thing I like about Sasuke is his extreme love and loyalty towards his family. Maybe it’s because I’ve been raised in a culture where family is always the most important, but I can’t help but appreciate how none of the things he did throughout the series were for himself, but for his family. People think Sasuke is disloyal because he “betrayed” Konoha but the truth is, Sasuke’s loyalty was never with Konoha to begin with, from the start it was always about family, he wanted to be acknowledged by his father, he wanted to join the Uchiha police force. He loved his mother and brother so much, cared about his father’s impression of him, was so proud of his family. And every single thing he wanted to do throughout the series was for them, wanting to avenge them, restore their honor, protect Konoha for Itachi’s sake. The fact that Sasuke and the rest of the Uchiha saw “the Uchiha” and “Konoha” as two separate entities and were only loyal to one of those was a result of Konoha’s own choice to alienate the Uchiha; you can’t treat a group of people like shit and then expect them to somehow love you and be loyal to you.

Sasuke doesn’t fit any generic shounen character type. His character is complex. He starts off as the typical rival but soon his character goes its own way. He has his own goals, his own path in life, his own relationships and his story doesn’t revolve around the main character or catching up to him. In fact it’s the opposite, it’s Naruto whose story mostly revolves around Sasuke. He’s one of the characters who makes this story unpredictable and interesting. Because let’s be real, the plot of Naruto is rather predictable. Naruto meets villain, Naruto has training arc or gets a powerup, Naruto defeats villain, rince and repeat until he becomes Hokage. Even one of the biggest “mysteries” of the series, Tobi’s identity, was predicted by everyone after his very first appearance. Throughout all of this it’s Sasuke who keeps the story interesting, because you’re never really sure what he’s gonna do, how he’s gonna react to things, where he’s gonna end up. That’s the reason why he was/is often the main subject of discussion even among people who don’t like him. Even up until the very end some people were saying he was gonna come back and become anbu, some were saying he would leave with taka, some thought he would die. No one could really guess where he would end up, whereas with other characters things were much more easy to predict.

I like Sasuke because I actually stop to look at things from his point of view as well; I know it’s hard to do so when the narrative always presents things from Naruto and Sakura’s side. It’s easy to just look at the surface and say: Sasuke made Naruto and Sakura sad, therefore he is bad. But when I look at things from Sasuke’s point of view, I understand all of the things he does, and I realize the choices he makes are often the most realistic considering his situation.

Let’s start from the very beginning. A lot of people hate Sasuke because they think he “treated Naruto like shit” throughout part one. But if you actually take the time to read the manga, who was the one who showed contempt towards the other first? It was Naruto. He hates Sasuke because he’s popular and Sakura likes him. This is established from the very beginning. The accidental kiss happened because Naruto tried to provoke Sasuke as a result of his jealousy. Naruto was the one who attacked Sasuke first—tied him up and tried to kiss Sakura while posing as him. And yet only minutes after that Sasuke still chose to defend him against Sakura. Throughout the rest of part one Sasuke and Naruto do bicker and fight a lot, but all of those fights and insults are two-sided and yet for some reason I only ever see people focus on Sasuke’s side.

It’s the same with all of the more serious fights between them. The majority of them were actually started by Naruto. People claim that Sasuke mistreated and/or abused Naruto and Sakura; but the truth is, if Sakura and Naruto hadn’t chased after Sasuke, Sasuke wouldn’t have even met any of them between chapter 180 and 631. That’s the space between when he left Konoha and when he joined the war. That’s more than 450 chapters. Naruto is the one who started the first big Nar/Sas fight. He chased after Sasuke and told him he’d “break his arms and legs and bring him back like a broken stick” if he had to. The fight against team Kakashi in Orochimaru’s lair happened because they chased after him and tried to bring him back. The fight in the Gokage meeting arc happened because Sakura chased after Sasuke and tried to kill him by herself. Sasuke simply left and made it clear to them that he had severed their bonds; they’re the ones who went after him. You can’t be an abuser when you don’t even want a relationship with your so-called victims. Every single time, he was either rejecting them and/or retaliating against their own attacks. Am I saying they shouldn’t have tried to stop him even when he was a criminal? No, but people shouldn’t pretend that Sasuke was specifically going after Sakura and Naruto to hurt or “abuse” them, when they’re the ones who chased after him. He was an enemy of Konoha because the village had murdered his family in cold blood. It’s not about “abuse” or Sakura and Naruto’s feelings.

And it’s easy to only consider their feelings in this situation; oh, they loved him and wanted to save him but he rejected them, he’s such an ass. But the truth is Sasuke doesn’t have to go back to the village that killed off his family, made him miserable and offered him no support as a childjust to make them happy. He doesn’t have to put their feelings before his own. He doesn’t have to put them, teammates that he had been with for a few months at most, over his family that raised him for 9 years. People are allowed to reject relationships they don’t want. Yes, rejection hurts, but it doesn’t automatically make the person who rejected you an asshole.

It’s easy to judge Sasuke for his decisions without paying attention to the circumstances that caused him to make them. “He betrayed his friends and left Konoha”— even though he had just had the shit beaten out of him by his brother, had been mentally tortured for days within a genjutsu, had been told he was weak because he didn’t have enough hate. People just expect a twelve-year-old to deal with it and move on.“He flip-flopped too much”—despite the fact that he had had his entire world turned upside down because he had been told that his whole life was a lie, his abusive brother loved him all along and it was Konoha who had caused his misery. I don’t know how or why people expect someone to just stay strong while being put through all of that.

I have a lot of issues with the series itself and the morals it tries to convey. For example, the series tries to pit “talent” and “hard work” against each other; Kishimoto seems to think that talented people don’t work hard or that they are somehow assholes by default (it’s also hypocritical because later on we find out Naruto himself actually had a lot of natural talents and advantages as well). I see a lot of people make arguments such as “Sasuke had everything handed to him while Naruto worked hard”. They ignore how hard Sasuke worked to learn the fireball jutsu and the Chidori, or how he trained with Orochimaru for three years, they also ignore that Naruto was able to learn the Rasenshuriken with minimal effort because of his naturally high chakra reserves or that almost the entirety of his power as an adult relies on Kurama, something that was given to him at birth. They ignore that everytime Sasuke got a free powerup Naruto got one too.

I also hate how the series tries to portray Sasuke and anyone else who wants reform or justice as a villain. Kishimoto thinks status quo > reform. It doesn’t matter if keeping the status quo means sweeping genocides under the rug, trampling on the rights of smaller villages with less power, ignoring the discrimination happening within clans. As long as “the village” is still standing, everything is okay. Don’t try to fix anything. Accept the “darkness” of the village. I come from a country with a dictatorship, so it’s much easier for me to understand Sasuke who wanted change rather than Konoha and their obsession with keeping everything as is. Yes, Sasuke’s method of fixing things was wrong, but people forget that this boy’s role model was Itachi, the one who thought the best way to protect a little kid was to torture him and tell him to live with hate, and it’s not like anybody actually condemned those actions. Everyone who knew the truth about Itachi thought he was the wisest person in history—the fandom does as well. And yet people are surprised when Sasuke thinks the best way to fix the system is through making people hate him. Only then does the fandom start talking about how “Sasuke should’ve learned from Itachi’s mistakes”, despite the fact that every other time they deny Itachi even made mistakes. The fact that Sasuke is ready to live a life of misery where everyone hates him is proof of how selfless he is, because yes it’s a misguided decision but it’s not a pleasant one, it’s not something he’s doing for himself. In the end instead of finding a better way to fix the system, Naruto just decides to keep the status quo.

Of course I like his design and abilities as well. I mean let’s be real, the duckbutt is almost iconic at this point, lol. Sasuke has the most interesting fighting style, the swordplay combined with the fire and the way he evolved Kakashi’s Chidori into so many different weapons. Not to mention his switcheroo ability after he gets the rinnegan. In my opinion he also gets the most interesting fights as well, Sasuke vs Deidara is still one of my favorites.

Anyways I’m sorry that this post got so long. This is why I never write character analysis, I tend to ramble way too much lol. Hope you have a nice day and thanks for the ask!

[catcatb0y]

I recently entered a server full of younger teenagers (not in a creepy way, it was a gaming thing, and I didn't learn that they were all under eighteen until after joining), and I don't know if I can really convey how this server made me feel.

The mod of this server threatened to kill herself multiple times in the span of two weeks, despite JUST HAVING MET a good HALF of us on an ONLINE VIDEO GAME.

One of the younger gamers (who I had been teammates with in the game) was shaking and crying, sending me DM after DM, out right worried that this all but complete fucking stranger was going to kill herself. If I didn't know her type before hand, I would have said the fear was well warranted, seeing as she OPENLY talked about cutting herself and binge drinking, despite being no older than eighteen. I believe she was seventeen at the time? And we had known her a WEEK before her first "suicide attempt."

Her long time friend admitted that this was a routine thing, and what do you know? It happened again around a week later.

Again, the younger gamer was freaking out in my DMs because, once again, the mod threatened to kill herself. (Did I handle it well? No, I am so sorry. I ended up getting mad at her, which ended up working? Because she realized that what she was doing was stupid, and I offered to help her work on some of her issues).

We don't talk anymore, but she got rather better after that, at least in terms of not constantly-

And I do mean constantly; the entire server, again, of mostly fifteen to seventeen year olds, was CONSTANTLY talking about how much they hate themselves, how unloved they are, how much they wanted to die- like that's not fucking okay! Every other message was talking about how "it's fine because no one loves me" or "I wish I could die irl"/"Let me diieeee" (when we were playing the game together).

Most of them have gotten better now*, seeing as that openly causes harm to their friends, and I have also maybe yelled at several of the kids for this kind of behavior, because it makes everyone feel bad. I had to stop interacting with them for a good while because it was pulling me back into a bad place (not that I'm wholly in a good place, now, but it was making it so much worse).

Fast forward, the sever has been getting bigger (not super big, but bigger than just the gaming circle), and they introduce a new bot for, wait for it: systems.

By the time I felt okay enough to start interacting with this crowd again, many of them had what they called systems, and, to describe it crudely, they had a handful of original characters based off of themselves which they would "switch into" depending on their mood. It wasn't just one or two of these teens that had these, by the way, it was several of them.

These systems often consisted of several personalities- all with different names, likes, dislikes, ways of interacting with people, and ages. Yeah, many of them had different ages, and in some cases, some of the (others) even had full length backstories. Sound a little suspicious?

All of this is VERY MUCH a coping mechanism, and *it works to make them feel better. Many of them who had these systems- whether it was related to the system or not- felt better because of the, well, systems they had set up. Of course, many of them also cut down on the negative self language, and this sever was made up of very clearly mentally ill teens who were also not being taken seriously (which is a really slippery slope, because do I think they have all of the disorders they claim to? No. Have I met people who faked being mentally ill/overplayed their mental illness for attention? Yes. But, the fact that have this issues they feel the need to name, the fact that these teenagers and kids feel the need to make themselves appear worse just to get taken seriously??? That shit needs to stop, and as much as I hate 'mentally ill for clout', these kids need to be taken seriously- attention seeking or not).

The fact that they felt the need to show off their suffering constantly- the fact that they talked about it until even their friends (who knew they were going through shit) stopped taking them seriously?

And the thing is, you can't tell these kids that their disorders are fake, because, for many of them, these are coping mechanisms for often real issues.

I just want to say, on a personal note, HOW did we get from "mental illness isn't REAL," to "mental illness is popular and cute," without ever hitting "mental illness is something that affects many people and needs to be taken seriously"??? Like, for a friend- who is very much me- how did we go from hiding mental illness in order to avoid being gawked at to making up mental illnesses for clout and wubbifying it on such a large scale?

There is this awkward like:

Group of adults (often boomers and people in the generations around them) who adamantly deny the very existence of mental illness;

Their young adult children who are very much traumatized by that toxic, shitty mindset. Their even younger adult children who are also traumatized by that, but also by the crippling state of the world- making it worse in most cases;

And then teenagers who make up mental illnesses and fake being mentally ill for clout to the point where they develop fake disorders and tics and shit on such a mass scale?

Like we always have had "OCD as a person ♡" and "my cuts hurt sooo much," but to the scale of /quantum jumping/?? This very fake, ableist perception of DID and personality disorders suddenly spiraling to live in their over dramatized forms that were made up for horror sake?

We're out here creating depression² and Depression³ with the state of the world, but for some reason people STILL need to make themselves out to be WORSE just to get any help or sympathy?

And, still, nothing has been done about mental health- sciences, systems, facilities, like

Most research is still done by able bodied, neurotypical people- (I had a friend deadass taking psychology classes and talking about how many people wanted to "fix mentally ill people," who were homophobic/transphobic/etc., some of which were going into PSYCHOLOGY saying that MENTAL ILLNESS WASN'T REAL), and even then it's still mostly consumed by neurotypical people. ((Like ADHD ISN'T actually about hyperactivity? It's names that way because of how it comes across to neurotypicals, and it's overdiagnosed in (primarily white) children and underdiagnosed in adults. The stigmagism around ADHD is still very much the 'energetic white boy'- which is funny and sad because those are the only people who have their disorders recognized))

Many mental facilities are still terrible to their patients- even those who WILLINGLY check in for their own health (of course, more anecdotal evidence, but I have had TWO people I know checked in to mental facilities, and they talked about how fucking shit the facilities were to them. (One of them checked in willingly because he was having a massive PTSD episode, and he was so excited to get out because it made him feel worse. The second was my cousin who was caught harming herself, but that still won't get them to take her abusive household seriously))

There is nothing being done to further common knowledge about mental illness except for at the table discussions when some of us speak up and say, "Well actually-"

And it's just???

Idk lmao it's starting to feel really hopeless.

its so insane to me that there are just tens of thousands if not significantly more young people who have managed to contract either very real eating disorders or entirely fictionalized offshoots of actual things like DID and tourettes by simple exposure to other people on social media performing these things for clout. like the social media age is inventing new dancing plagues every day through the sheer power of online strangers reinforcing some self-injurious / dissociative behaviors as indicative of something you cannot control, whether or not their assumptions of this “condition” you have are based in anything adjacent to reality.

stop telling kids they have multiple personalities and cant control their actions and are shifting their mental age and entering the harry potter universe or whatever just because they like the crusts sliced off their bread. in a world where just asking for comfort and validation without any particular justification is cringe and everyone else has it harder than you it’s not surprising people are driving themselves insane just so they can fit into some online community of similarly afflicted individuals just to receive some kind of validation. just to have negative emotions that everyone experiences at one point or another in their lives be reinforced and “validated” as a genuine hardship. you don’t have to have a deeper reason for feeling like shit that alienates you from talking about it with anyone but other online teens with a particualrly active imagination who think they met draco malfoy. just log off of tiktok and talk to someone you care about. for gods sake someone help these kids

[can-i-see-your-passport-please]

Alright, here we go. Spoilers for the entirety of HLVRAI, which I highly recommend watching. And for the annoying fandom people who are like sixteen who think I can't interpret Benrey sympathetically because something something innacurate (because they'll probably see this if this circulates in the fandom even though i have them blocked some of my moots follow them), I'm soooo sorry you hate fun that must be soooooo hard for you lol

Gonna be separating stuff by lines and bolding important sentences to make it easier to keep track of where you are, since I have ADHD and I need that fjkdnskjfndsj

@doomed-bythe-narrative

Now, I'm going to start this off by arguing that Gordon is the narrative in HLVRAI. And if not that, he is the central point of the narrative. I say this because in Act 3, we learn that whenever Gordon goes to sleep, the world just fucking stops. It basically ends until he wakes up again. And like... Why wouldn't it? He's the player character! HLVRAI is, in-universe, a game, and all the characters are AIs. Gordon is literally the only person who's not an AI. The world exists for Gordon to play in it. We are literally seeing EVERYTHING through his eyes. The code is not the narrative. Hell, the GAME isn't even the narrative. GORDON is.

So, the plot of HLVRAI is basically the plot of Half Life, with four very silly AI and an incredibly neurotic man with several unmedicated mental illnesses slapped on top of it, and this man is herding them along like sheep whilst filled with the fear of death while the team could get crushed in half and then come back fine (AND THEY DO). Team keeps dying, main character is filled with anxiety and fear, shenanigans, betrayal, and existential crises ensue. It's the funniest thing I've ever watched in my life, 10/10, it's also a masterpiece of writing despite being improv.

Alright, so Benrey… Benrey.

---

Now, through HLVRAI, Gordon has this consistent rivalry with Benrey. Well, maybe rivalry is the wrong word. Throughout the series, Gordon kinda dislikes Benrey. Constantly murdering him, pinning him to the wall that one time, being a dick to him... And Benrey is (and I say this with love) annoying as hell. He's constantly following Gordon around and asking for his passport and jokingly not allowing him entry to anywhere (and also in act 4 he starts flirting with him like crazy).

And the thing is... Gordon was like that towards Benrey from the start. Benrey wasn't super antagonistic towards Gordon- he was just doing his job. And yeah, it's nonsensical, but HLVRAI is nonsensical. This is a series where one of the characters canonically slurps up piss and has clones he needs to kill to get more powerful. This is a series where a man was grown in a fucking tube. This is a series where the team wipes out the US military except for one guy who just wanted to graduate, and it's because he left to go watch IrateGamer videos. Benrey's motivations- inhuman creature chasing around his crush so he can get his passport- are tame in comparison to the shit the others do all the fucking time. (At least unless you count his monologue as factual.)

---

But anyway, back to Gordon and Benrey. Gordon and Benrey's personalities clash horribly under the circumstances- Gordon DESPERATELY needs everyone to STAY FUCKING FOCUSED THEY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A WARZONE THOSE ARE NOT FUCKING ROPES THEY ARE GOING TO FUCKING EAT YOU DO NOT DRINK THE GREEN GOOP, but he's surrounded by four deranged guys (AT LEAST three of which are a decade or more older than him) who keep running into danger and coming back over and over.

And while Benrey isn't as danger seeking as the rest of the team (only in theory and if you don't have my lore), he's still very capable of being very annoying. If being annoying was a job, Benrey would- okay in this economy he would still be working minimum wage but he would be fuckin fantastic at his job. And he loves annoying Gordon specifically.

So, what we have here is an incredibly stressed out man who is in desperate need of some fuckin help, terrified of dying, trying desperately to keep the TEAM from dying, versus the most annoying inhuman Thing you've ever seen who just does not care about mortality because he always comes back. They were fucking DESIGNED to bounce off each other in a bad way- hell, their color schemes are opposite! Benrey's text color, shirt, and pants are all shades of blue, while Gordon walks around in a bright orange suit. Blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel- even down to their fuckin COLORS, they are OPPOSITES.

Now, as a reminder: in this analysis propaganda thing, Gordon is the narrative. And Benrey is doomed by the narrative. So under these circumstances, with these clashing personalities, with Gordon under this level of stress, with Benrey being the chill individual he is... They were kinda destined to be nemeses.

---

Yet under different circumstances, I believe with my whole heart that they could have been friends. Throughout the series, despite how often Gordon says he hates Benrey, he laughs at his jokes so much. And when Benrey gets in danger, he yells for him to get out of the way. Fuck, there's a part in Act 2 where he says Benrey's Sweet Voice is beautiful. There's a part of him, somewhere, that genuinely cares about Benrey, even if it's buried under layers of stress and fear.

In fact I have some level of proof that they could've been friends- in the cast commentaries, there are noncanonical intros to each one that are basically the characters chatting, and the fourth one is basically Benrey and Gordon fucking around in a bathroom.

Gordon has just killed Benrey semi-permanently, the tension should be astronomically high. And yet... it's not. Benrey sounds happier than at any point in the whole series, and Gordon sounds like he is smiling. The entire scene, he sounds like he's just smiling. They're just being silly together, even as the music is (presumably) meant to sound at least a little threatening, it's just not. The scene's just cute.

And my second piece of evidence: there's an additional stream to HLVRAI called the ACAB stream where the team basically goes to rob a bank. And Benrey at this point is supposed to be dead, but instead he invades the group, briefly fills their brains with bees, and reunites with them.

And Gordon doesn't try to do any shit to him. He explicitly tells Benrey he WON'T FIGHT HIM, even when Benrey dares him to 1v1 him. And their relationship seems... lighter. Less stressful. Benrey's still being a menace, yeah, he chases Gordon with a knife at one point because he's a little bastard, but Gordon isn't scared of him. He's laughing, they're being just... really silly!!

My point is: GORDON COULD'VE BEEN FRIENDS WITH BENREY. If they'd met a little earlier, if it'd been less stressful, if Benrey had been more helpful, if, if, if. If circumstances had been different, in any way, they could have been good friends.

The circumstances in which the narrative took place doomed Benrey to not be able to be Gordon's friend.

Which in turn doomed Benrey to be the villain.

-

In Act 3, Benrey and Bubby conspire to get Gordon jumped by the military. Why exactly is unconfirmed, and I'm not dragging my not-based-in-canon headcanons into this. And at first, it's going well (for them, not for Gordon).

But then they cut off Gordon's arm. Which Bubby seems shocked by... and so does Benrey.

If you haven't watched HLVRAI, Benrey isn't very emotive with his voice, to very comedic effect (and it's even funnier when he IS emotive with his voice). But he sounds shocked by this. He sounds like he didn't fucking expect the soldiers to do that.

Now, even if it hadn't gone wrong to the point of CUTTING OFF GORDON'S FUCKING ARM, this definitely would've fucked up Gordon and Benrey's relationship. But the arm thing definitely sealed it. Like, his mental health gets SO MUCH WORSE after the betrayal. He's undeniably traumatized. I'm not going to explain HOW much worse it gets, because that's off-topic and would probably trigger at least one person reading this, but... Holy fucking shit it's bad. So yeah, Gordon was justified in hating Benrey after that. Yet that shock in Benrey's voice implies to me HE DID NOT WANT THE ARM THING TO HAPPEN.

Was Gordon justified? Yes, absolutely. Did Benrey mean to do that? I don't know. Leaning towards the answer being no.

And this gets sold to me by Bubby.

-

When Gordon finds Bubby in his tube and asks him about Benrey, Bubby has this line where he... defends Benrey. He tells Gordon that the soldiers told him to help as well, which, at least to me, implies that Benrey was not, in fact, the orchestrater of the whole thing, the mastermind behind it all. Rather, the FUCKING US MILITARY made the plan and got Benrey to go along with it. Benrey didn't organize it with the soldiers (in fact, the jump is a part of Half Life canon, so he definitely didn't), the soldiers organized it and got him to help.

And, let me just set your expectations: Bubby is, and I say this with love, one of the most selfish members of the team. He's an absolute piece of shit, he's a coward, he SUCKS and I LOVE him. This isn't to say that he doesn't care about the team- he does, just look at his relationship with Tommy. But even so, he is INCREDIBLY SELFISH.

So let me ask you this: what reason would he have to defend Benrey here?

He could just not! He could've just thrown Benrey under the bus! Pinned all the blame on him, rather than the military! Said he was the one who made the plan, he was the one who decided for him to get his arm cut off. And like, those could've been reasonable conclusions for him to come to! And it's not like Gordon wouldn't have believed him! He would've! It could've gotten Bubby MORE on Gordon's side! It makes every sense that the most selfish member of the team would've pinned all the blame on

And yet he didn't. He chose to defend Benrey even so. He has no reason to. He has every reason not to. Yet he does.

And Gordon tells him that sounds like a fucking fantasy. For understandable reasons, like, let me make it clear: I'm not blaming Gordon for being angry at Benrey. He had just gotten his arm cut off by the guy, he'd been annoyed at him the whole time, he's justified in being pissed at him.

But still... even when being told by the most selfish guy in the team that Benrey's not the villain, the narrative continues to doom him to that fate.

-

In the second half of Act 4 Part 1, they're heading to a space dimension called Xen to kill... "a single powerful being." (When an NPC tells Gordon that, he looks over at Benrey.) This will end the Rescas and most likely save the world.

And Benrey doesn't want them to go. He keeps telling them to go back. They should go back, they're "going further into hell", they should sleep, they need to go sleep, they can't go in that room because there aren't any beds.

Yet they continue anyway.

He seems to know what will happen on Xen. And what happens is that Benrey becomes the final boss. He grows to massive size and follows the team around still, though he doesn't attack until they get to the final chamber, and even then his attacks are very sloppy.

And most believe that the reason he protested so much was that he knew that he was going to be the big bad, and didn't want to be that.

Further evidenced by one specific line.

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In the finale, when Benrey has become the final boss and in the middle of a... very... strange monologue, Benrey says "i was supposed to be nice, but you made me bad, so i'm gonna be bad. friend."

Not "I want to be bad." Certainly not "I want to hurt you."

In fact, Benrey seems to NOT want to hurt them, AT ALL- there's a point where one of the characters is trapped by his skeleton friends, and he tells them to let him go. And there's one point in the boss fight where he yells at them "STOP SHOOTING AT ME, IF YOU SHOOT ME I HAVE TO SHOOT BACK! I DON'T WANNA DO THAT!" He explicitly TELLS THEM that he doesn't wanna hurt them!!

That's not what made Benrey the final boss. It wasn't a decision out of malice. He didn't do it because he wanted the team dead. If he did, he could've just fucking killed the team. He was 40 feet tall. He could have just fucking crushed them.

So why?

"You made me bad."

The narrative.

-

Benrey never had a choice.

He is the complete opposite of Gordon, the fucking narrative. And while under different circumstances they could've been friends, this was the wrong place and the wrong time for them to meet. Even if the betrayal had never happened, even if Benrey had just been an annoying guy the whole time, at no point during the Rescas could Gordon have ever seen Benrey as the good guy.

From the very first scene, where Benrey approached Gordon and asked if he had his passport, the tone was a ball of stress bouncing off a wall of chillness. And like that, they couldn't have been friends. Under the circumstances of an apocalyptic situation where Gordon was trying desperately to survive while Benrey, a presumably immortal, unkillable, constantly annoying force kept pestering him, they could not have been friends.

And the game is shaped around Gordon. Gordon is the fucking narrative.

Benrey couldn't have been anything other than the antagonist.

He was doomed from the start.

Doomed by the Narrative: Side B - Round 1