#maintagging this cause I feel it's important for people to read

[im-no-jedi]

my thoughts on TBB season 2 episodes 7-8

and why it’ll probably be a long time before I’m able to rewatch these episodes again 💀

this is gonna be long and probably not very coherent, but I’m gonna do my best cause I need to get my feelings out 😅

I wanna start by saying I think these were some of the best episodes not just in TBB, but in SW media overall. the issue of Clones rights is something that we’ve been desperate to see addressed ever since TCW. we got hints of it in TCW, but it was never a prevalent issue since the series focused so much on the Jedi. Umbara was the first major instance we got of this, after a few smaller hints (Rex with Cut and the Separatist attack on Kamino were standouts for sure). but this was the first time we saw real, true focus on the rights of the Clones, especially in relation to their significance outside of war. it was done perfectly imo, even though it ended up being what kicked off the official start of the Stormtrooper era 💔

I told this to @jam-n-ham and she agreed with me, but Riyo spoke not just for her own beliefs, but for the entire fandom as well, and I really appreciate that 💙

another thing I absolutely loved was seeing TBB work with Rex again. them sneaking into Rampart’s ship and that whole endeavor was very reminiscent of their TCW arc with the refined chaos we know and love about them; it’s easily one of my favorite moments of the entire series now 😁

speaking of Rampart... DING DONG THE BINCH IS GONE. OMG. I legit thought he was gonna be more of a problem throughout the series (and he probably still will be 🙄), but for now at least, he’s finally outta here. hallelujah \o/

one more thing I have to mention is Omega. oh my sweet baby girl. this episode was such a good showcase of her character. it showed her sweetness and curiosity, while also giving her a chance to express her feelings about what happened on Kamino. her little rant was everything, and I’m so proud of her; she’s becoming a very expressive and strong young woman that I wish I had gotten to see more of when I was younger 💙

alright. now time for the feels™

I want to state that this is something extremely personal to me, so I’m going to speak mainly from the heart in regard to this. it’s really hard for me to make a more thoughtful judgment about it, especially since the season isn’t over yet, and we don’t know how things are going to play out fully. all I know right now is how I feel. so here we go.

I’m personally absolutely devastated about Echo leaving.

I know, I know, pretty much everyone can relate to this right now. but let me explain.

I struggle greatly with loss. of any kind, really. mostly in terms of relationships and people. throughout my life, I’ve struggled to maintain relationships with people and have had many people permanently leave my life, either by choice or circumstance. I can’t handle death very well, and I rarely can bring myself to even say goodbye to people. the very idea of someone leaving, even temporarily, is hard for me to handle.

this is further worsened because I also get extremely attached to things. this includes physical objects, people, animals, fictional characters, franchises in general, you name it. my specific brand of undiagnosed neurodiversity means that I get extra emotional when anything happens to something I’m attached to. @jam-n-ham can vouch for how excited and emotional I get when we’re watching something together. I don’t cry irl very often, but I get extremely emotional watching media of any kind.

so imagine my reactions to when a fictional character either dies or leaves in some manner. yeah...

when Fives died, it devasted me in a way that I’ve never fully recovered from. it legit traumatized me. to this day, I literally cannot even look at screencaps or gifs of when he died. it’s only been recently that I’ve even been able to acknowledge anything from that arc in general. I feel similarly about when Kanan died in Rebels as well (although that one is a bit easier for me to stomach because of how it was done).

and for me, characters leaving, even if it’s on good terms, affects me in an almost identical way. to me, Echo leaving TBB is no different than when he “died” in the Citadel arc, another moment that traumatized me. it doesn’t matter that he said he’ll be back or whatever. he’s still gone in my eyes.

I’ve been very attached to Echo since we first saw him. I actually liked him more than Fives for a while. I was ecstatic when we found out he was still alive and got rescued in TCW. and he’s been an absolute joy to watch in TBB. although he’s @jam-n-ham’s bae, he’s my boy and my bro and I love him very much. there’s a reason I made him my best friend in my self-insert series 🥰

I really wish I could explain this better since there are many instances of characters leaving or dying that hasn’t affected me so badly (again, I handled Kanan WAY better than Fives, and I literally can’t count the number of times I’ve watched the Umbara arc). I’m in a sensitive place in my life in general right now, so that might have something to do with it. but I feel like I would have these same feelings no matter what simply because of my trauma and my specific attachment to Echo as a character.

I do want to say though that I’m glad him leaving was presented the way that it was. I actually already knew he was going to leave at some point WEEKS ago due to spoilers, and I spoiled myself again before seeing the episodes, so I knew it was coming. it didn’t make it hurt any less, but the fact that he left on good terms with everybody is nice to know at least. Omega had a strong emotional reaction, which was understandable and realistic, and I appreciate that as well (considering I had a similar reaction 😅). also, I support what he’s doing and am glad that he feels like he’ll make a difference with Rex supporting other Clones in need. he’s a good boy, guys 🥺💙

so yeah. although I’m positive we’ll see him again (along with the likely possibility of him rejoining TBB at some point), it’s still incredibly painful that he’s gone and separated from the others. I feel like this will be addressed with Omega in the show, since she seems to be going through similar feelings. and if not... well, I still have my self-insert series that I can use to address it LOL

tl;dr because of my trauma dealing with loss and my strong attachment to Echo as a character, I won’t be rewatching episodes 7-8 for some time. I’ll be reassessing my feelings again once the season is over, but for now, this is where I stand.

ilu Echo. I hope I see you again soon 💙💙💙

[eggtwobroes]

big post explaining/apologizing for my (eggtwobroes/theyhitthepentagon) behavior under the read more

sorry for maintagging this i just. think its important

i dont really kniw how to word what im thinking so im like. going to type it as im thinking. but i wanted to make a real genuine post explaining my behavior over the past year, because ive been a dick there is no avoiding it!! this post is going to be about how ive acted from june up until now. im mostly going to be explaining the situations and apologizing. if you see this please feel free to share it around, i know it most likely will not reach alot of people because i have like. a loot of people blocked. and alot of people have me blocked. idk please share this ok thank u

back in june 2022 (specifically one year tomorrow, june 16th) i got like. really worked up after i had foundout that most of my adult mutuals (and some people i followed) were drawing hlvrai nsfw! the only post i had made about it (at least from what i remember) is liiike a not Kind post that basically said "hey if u like hlvrai nsfw please block me i thought that was common sense". after i posted this a large hlvrai artist (either by chance or caused by me) posted like "hey if u shit on hlvrai porn ur homophobic! sex is an important part of gay relationships etc etc"

this caused a Massive out break of discourse over hlvrai nsfw and me getting alot of adults in my inbox being weird towards me. here i feel its important to mention that:

when i was 12, i was around Ex Friends that posted a lot of porn of media i liked. even though most of them were teenagers and not that much older than me it Greatly Impacted Me and how i act, both related to what i saw and how i was treated

i used twitter from ages 12-15 (recently left) and you know how they handle conflict there. its not good

i dont think either of these excuse how i acted (but they may explain it)

the combined pressure of getting a bunch of adults in my anons being (from my perspective) really weird about this 14 year old kid who doesnt want porn artists to interact, and the unhealed trauma of Being Exposed To Homestuck Porn When I Was 12 (a devastating situation that everyone goes though all the time) i didnt really. handle it in a Good Way. which Means i sent horrible anon hate to people.i dont clearly remember if i made alot of public posts about the situation at the time (beyond answering the anons i was getting) but if i did im very very VERY sorry.

i feel like. alot of how i acted during this time (june-early august, mostly) was extremely Dickish and rude. as much as i justify or explain why i acted the way i did, i was still causing issues and handling the situation in a way that was unhealthy for not just myself but for everyone else around me. for this i really genuinely do apologize as much as i can, to the people ive hurt (melonsharks, xenodogz, many other artists) and to the people who were annoyed by me rehashing 3 year old drama. ever since the situation i have been working towards learning to block people and move on if they make content that makes me feel nauseous.

As for how ive acted in recent months, mostly over characterization, im not going to pretend that im already a new person. because im not! as much as i say im trying to be less of an asshole im just Not. it takes effort that i feel like im not putting in.

for those who just Dont look at my pages often enough, i will occasionally make posts about how hlvrai fans treat or characterize the. characters. and lets behonest these posts are really rude and ive been working on at LEAST being more vague or keeping it in private or like. just Not Posting it. but of course i HAVENT done all of those things! ive been really unvague!

ive posted direct screenshots of authors writing (someone younger than me, ive recently learned) to shit on it for being mischaracterized. i should Not have done that. at the very least i should have kept my thoughts to myself, not even shared with my friends.

after reading how other authors and artists have felt about the things ive said, and looking at the way ive come to think of other artists or authors in the community, ive realized that even though i thought i was targetting mischaracterization and poor treatment of the characters, i was harming and discouraging artists and authors who are still learning and growing as creators.

for this, im VERY very sorry to all of the artists and writers ive hurt or discouraged with my posts. i want to personally apologize to joyflameball, for publicly posting about and hating on your writing and the discouragement i caused as a result. i should have never put mischaracterization over your own feelings, and i definitely should not have put your work on blast, especially because we are (i think) around the same age. i will be trying as best as i can to deconstruct the way ive come to think of other creators in this community and support other creators as best i can.

i dont expect to be forgiven for the way ive acted, since alot of this is VERY very recent and so far i dont think ive shown any signs of improvement. i am writing this post now because i want you all to know that i will be trying my hardest to become a better person, change the way i think of other people, and change the way i act in public. i dont think my actions can be excused, as much as i try my best to explain them from my perspective. ive undeniably hurt many people. if i havent addressed something important, or if you have any questions/things to say, please feel free to send me an ask or dm me at wretched yaoi lich#9564 on discord. im most likely going to be queueing this post alot so my followers see it. thank u for ur time

[beetlemancy]

Hi so having seen some of your posts on Caleb's trauma I wanted to ask what your view is of people arguing that what Liam said about the rooms in the tower is wrong. That actually keeping memories like the residuum chamber is just self-harm and not healing. That it isn't a healthy way to process trauma. Cause honestly if I hadn't read meta done by you and other critters I might have agreed with them.

Hmm. If I understand your question, I think you’re asking specifically about the people who disagree with me and a few others of us - and aren’t asking necessarily about why I think differently. If anybody else wants to read those, uhhh. I dunno, probably just search ‘caleb’ on my blog and ‘characters with trauma’ or just ‘trauma’ on luckthebard’s page - Luck’s breakdown of trauma and EMDR is especially a good read. 

Okay so, back to the people disagreeing. Their opinions are valid and might very well be exactly how their trauma works. Maybe they’ve had really horrid experiences with therapy that utilized some kind of retrospection on their trauma. That’s more than okay for them. They’re allowed to think differently.

Its the people who are making maintagged posts, sending anons, etc saying, ‘No, you are wrong, Liam is wrong, and I will fight this corner to the detriment of everyone around me.’ Those are the people who I can’t stand and who need to shut up already. 

There’s also quite a lot of people who clearly DON’T understand trauma (outside of, like, 2020 trauma) who are used to seeing typical media about it and are drawing their conclusions and their worldviews from those false sources. This leads to quite a lot of ableism involved in their ‘takes’ regarding characters who have trauma, and especially Caleb as Liam enjoys exploring the darker, less glorified, less digestible traits of trauma/neurodiversity.  Its okay to not fully understand a topic, but when people are saying ‘hey, i relate to this, this scene and this character and how this character handles their shit is really important to me and how i handle MY shit’ then maybe take a fucking step back?? There’s also, like, you know. People who enjoy shitting on Liam characters and who jump at the mere wafting smell of a reason to do so. Many of my untagged “chipmunk” posts have more to do with my personal feelings on the topic, and my personal feelings on Caduceus. This, to me, is separate from how I feel about people who overall disagree with my take on things. As long as they let me live, I’ll let them live.