#me when i cope by projecting onto the blorbo

[astralcurses]

guyz yesterday i want to the mall with my friend and we went into the hot topic and i found the best piece of clothing ive ever seen in person

ITS A ZIP UP JAKCET THAT COMES WITH WINGS ATTACHED TO THE BACK it makes me feel like alcor :] its the best thing ive ever owned

[findmeinthefallair]

The scenes towards the end of the finale were like an intersection of multiple characters experiencing the loss of father figures, in different shades:

Luz's relationship to her late father took on a different form, after King's own father passed on and his glyph magic was gone for good. Manny gifting her the Azura books before his death, and Papa Titan offering her glyph magic before he too passed on, helped Luz find her place in the world and defeat Belos.

Apparently this scene is what made Sarah Nicole-Robles bawl in the recording studio, right after she recorded the lines.

When these changes happen - when we experience the loss of a person, when our ties with them are wrangled into a new form, against our will - it can be devastatingly painful. Change and transformation make for fancy, dramatic scenes in fiction, and they always incur loss in some form, painful or not. It also made me so emotional when seeing how much 18-year-old Luz resembles Manny, and how her enrolment in the university is linked to both her biological father and Papa Titan.

King's experience of seeing the majesty of his father, however brief, left him in awe and exhilaration. He can rest in the beautiful knowledge that Papa Titan was watching over him the whole time too. The message that his dad left him, relayed by Luz, is something he'll hold dear forever.

Hunter will never be truly harmed by Belos ever again. But he can't discard the memories of Belos granting him attachment: even if the attachment ended up not being real in a sense. However, like what can be applied in real-life therapy, he can get guidance on how to rescript those memories.

Belos's lies about having good intentions don't change how it felt real to Hunter all those years ago. Hunter was a young child when receiving this 'love', and in a twisted way...the mission given to him by Belos kept him alive up till he could escape the Coven, because the mission gave his life meaning despite the circumstances being awfully terrible. A child cannot survive without attachment, and needs attachment even if the experience of attachment has been horrendous and scarring. And holy Titan don't get me started on how at age 16 (before the timeskip), he had yet to learn more grisly details about his predecessors - whom he might view as older brothers and fathers whom he never met - and the generational trauma in his Golden Guard family tree:

which would have definitely been explored before he could experience that amazing hard-won serenity and peace at age 20.

Even Philip's arc is inextricably tied to his manner of coping with how he murdered Caleb, who was the closest thing he had to a father, given how these two brothers were orphans. In the end, Philip meets his end while Luz gazes upon him the same way Caleb's ghost did. Philip won't be haunted by Caleb's ghost again, and he joins the person who was essentially his father figure in death. Till the very end, he was projecting onto another person because he didn't want to recognize the same traits in himself. He was the one responsible for his father figure's death.

But grief doesn't mean the relationships in question have ended altogether. It's kind of like what this post about the finale (link) says, and it even extends to the relationship between us fans and the show itself.

The cliché "5 Stages of Grief" is the most commonly mentioned grief model, but I follow the development and advocacy of a newer perspective on grief that challenges it. In fact, the 5 Stages was originally just intended for terminally ill patients, but it was taken out of proportion. I began a serious investigation into the newer models after I went through something that parallels Hunter losing Flapjack...eerily, it happened to me two weeks before TTT's release date. No wonder I feel so close to Hunter as a blorbo, I guess.

Unlike what the 5 Stages of Grief says, grief and linear time don't mix well. Without "stages" to follow, there isn't an expectation of some deadline or permanent end of a tunnel in the newer models. Such pressure wouldn't be honoring the sacredness of connections between us. Instead, less famous grief perspectives like the dual-process model and continuing bonds model, are a better fit to honor relationships that mattered, since they aren't given an expiry date.

I wonder how Luz would be feeling on the day she graduates from the Wild Magic University, and how King feels each time he unlocks his own new glyphs since he is the new Titan to supply the Isles with magic. And I wonder how Hunter felt when his coven sigil was replaced with the Flapjack tattoo, and how he feels when he sees the Gravesfield town seal and Wittebane statues.

There are ways in which they can get creative to integrate their grief (notice I didn't say "get rid of", "remove", "erase" or even "manage"...the pain is what is to be managed, not the grief itself) the best they can. In canon, we have examples such as the Hexsquad agreeing to get their Flapjack tattoos together. Luz letting go of the light glyph sheet here:

is also a fantastic representation of rituals like sending off a message in a bottle at a beach, tying a message to a balloon and letting it fly away (this happened in Reaching Out, didn't it?), or burning a message in a campfire to let it float up towards the sky in the form of embers.

It is a common recommendation to have exercises like letter-writing where the griever writes to the lost loved one. What many may not know is you can also do the reverse: you writing as your lost loved one, to yourself. Because the griever takes a piece of the lost loved one with them, that the griever has shaped within themselves. This is especially good if you need to extend forgiveness to yourself. An example from a book called Bearing the Unbearable:

The author felt responsible for the stillbirth of her child, but had a "happy accident" where she intuitively asked for forgiveness and then received it, by invoking the love that her child would have shown to her in a world where said child had remained alive.

I think Hunter in particular could benefit from something like this, writing to himself as the uncle whom he saw as genuine and nurturing, and gaining ownership of that part of him even though Belos was a liar and is now gone for good. It can help him move forward especially since he won't be spared from nightmares in which his loss is re-enacted. With this kind of rescripting, historical accuracy doesn't actually need to matter. After all, our own minds lie to us at times and mess with historical accuracy anyway, like Luz's thoughts telling her she was as bad as Belos, and how true that felt.

A physical loved one is lost to death, and it can feel just as painful - only in a different way - if people become estranged or separated without a literal death having occurred. But the connection to them isn't lost, it is only adapted. The bond continues. For better or worse.

I believe the pain in grieving is connected to each moment when we remember all over again that the one we loved isn't coming back.

It's like the needle of a gramophone getting stuck in the loop of an unpleasant-sounding record scratch noise. It's a bit like what C.S. Lewis says in his book A Grief Observed: "In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out." I can't find the other part but he later said something like, therefore if a friendship is lost, the part of you that only that friend could bring out, is also lost. Something in you is locked away forever, though new things can also be unlocked after the loss.

It wasn't shown onscreen but I wouldn't be surprised if it's regular for Luz to come across a meme and be freshly reminded of her dad's absence, because she can't show him that meme. King would be wishing that a new funny cat video he discovers is something his dad could also laugh at along with him. Hunter would be hoping that Flapjack, the previous Golden Guards and Caleb are watching as he brings back palismen.

Bereavement, and any grief that is significant enough to alter our personhood forever, are the forms of love that can never really grasp how time flows in a linear way. They can't be reasoned with, only experienced.

"...the howling at the center of grief is raw and real. It is love in its most wild form" - Megan Devine.

[taldigi]

blah blah blah yosuke yosugay blah blah blah

anyway

Sometimes shit adults say that seems innocuous to them can absolutely fucking devastate a kid's worldview -- like- my mother telling me that she'd still love me if I was gay (even if she would be sooo disappointment and that "she'd rather I not" but "a mother's love is obligatory" you know you know) when I asked-- but later being told, unprompted, that she wouldn't let me cut my hair short lest I "become a dyke" with such vitriol and disgust that it did a fuck ton of mental damage and instilled hilariously absurd levels of fucky behavior and fear of- not only disappointment, but transforming into something abhorrent and wrong and bad. I mean, it's fundamentally untrue- because I shave my head now and haven't spoken to her in years.

looks at nails anyway turning this back to fandom shit- because I'm a funky little lesbian who needs an emotional support blorbo to attach onto for my mental health. I choose (mostly unwillingly, as I do not decide such things as much as my heart does) to project that specific event very heavily onto legendary closeted boyfailure Yosuke specifically, because "Yes you can dye your hair sweetie, but no weird colors, okay? You don't want people to think you're funny." is absolutely something that was said to his face and was most likely a huge seed for growing into a huge complex. That and, the fact that yes I was alive and young during 2011 in a rural community and yes I know rural japan is hardly like methodist farm town america but some shit doesn't change and I remember 2011 and I remember it being really unkind.

me: he's a cartoon character hee hee hoo hoo.

also me: I can't believe they somehow made a character that resonates with me so deeply down to the eternal funnyman coping mechanism and the "headphones on all the time" disease. I can't fucking believe i've been cursed with him as blorbo.

[olderthannetfic]

The teenage fandom puritanism really confuses me. To be honest I don't know what to think. For the most part, the antis I've come across aren't sex repulsed, or sex negative or anything like that, they're just extremely, extremely uncomfortable with people older than them making explicit content of characters they like. These are often characters in their late teens (17/18/19) that the teenage antis identify with.

They feel like they're still kids and minors and fragile so they project this onto their blorbos and demonize anyone basically over 20, and the outrage seems to get worse the older one gets, making explicit fan content of them.

The antis I know reblog, create, post about sexually explicit writing and fanart themselves and they give a pass to anyone 18 or under making such content but as soon as your age ticks over that magical year, it's over.

A tiny part of me can kind of see it from the point of view of a young person who's grown up in a society where hysterical reactions to everything are normal and encouraged and where pedophile is the absolute worst thing you can call someone...It seems like to their minds any adult creating fictional sexy content of a 'teen character' must be acting on some vile real life impulse to harass and abuse real life teenagers because clearly there's no separation between fiction and reality /s.

So knowing they've grown up in that sort of environment I kind of get why they'd be so scared and distrustful of any adult having fun with fictional characters but it also still blows my mind.

I remember devouring as much smutty fiction as I could when I was in high school, some of which was about teenage or young adult characters, all of which were published books written by adults, and never once did it cross my mind 'This person must be writing this story because they're getting their sick jollies imagining kids having sex' (because antis conveniently refer to anyone under 18 as a kid, as if a 17 year old was the mental and emotional equivalent of a 7 year old. They conveniently forget that adolescence exists.) Actually, the authors didn't really enter my mind at all because I'd be too busy getting lost in the story, imagining it was me the sexy times were happening to and having a very good time.

I always thought these people can write these stories because they were that age once, they know what it was like. I've always thought of writing like this, that you write because you know what it was like, not because you necessarily want to be there right now.

So this terrible fear the young antis have of adults creating written or visual content of fictional young adults having sex or thinking about sex or craving sex is kind of wild and alien to me.

I think it's something they won't understand themselves until they hit mid-20s, 30s, 40s themselves, that when adults make that sort of explicit content it's not because they are horny for teens in real life and making fiction is just some sort of cheap cope, but because they're having fun reimagining their own youth or because now that they're removed from those turbulent teenage years they can look back with fondness, or horror, and can write about that period of life with more clarity and nuance. Or maybe, just maybe, they just think the characters are roaring good fun and are trying to create some content that will bring something entertaining, meaningful and just blimmin' good to read to that same audience that wants them pilloried.

Who knows. I'm just an old person who has no business having any erotic thoughts about nothing and anything I say can be discarded ^.^

--

You give them massively too much credit.

They are emotional children who have trouble sharing their blorbos with others and who are Big Mad some older person is a better writer and/or ships their blorbo in a more interesting ship and gets way more attention for doing so.

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

Let Me Drown (Orville Peck)

Never knew where was home I slept a lifetime alone/Yeah, we had it one time but it's gone now, it's gone/Let me drown/I know with pleasure comes pain/I figured we were the same/But as I get older I get more afraid

"It is the best song for a good cry, when I'm down I listen to this on repeat. It so hard to stop listening to, you don't want any other song you want this again. The emotions are so strong you get swept away in it. I first heard this song on a video edit of Edward Teach (ofmd) after Stede leaves him. When he is turning back to his old ways and rejecting all the good in him that Stede brought out. He is throwing away his own growth and returning to the safety of a hard violent facade. It fits this song so well."

Family Line (Conan Gray)

Scattered 'cross my family line/I'm so good at telling lies/That came from my mother's side/Told a million to survive/Scattered 'cross my family line God, I have my father's eyes/But my sister's when I cry

"Familial trauma go BRRR. Nah cause my family fr be kinda like that and wow that is one way to make me face it and cry instead of my humour coping mechanism among some other unhealthy ones. I also project it onto the blorbos I kin and it makes me cry all over again 🥲 (it's also just a very good song that haunts you)"

[quinloki]

I’mma muse about some stuff and it’s going to get a little lot dark so please tread carefully.

Topics will include assault, trauma, trauma processing, projection, and messy healing.

And oddly enough, it all started with realizing what defining moment it was that made Marco my #1 blorbo over Eustass Kid.

I love Eustass Kid - from canonical character to head canon king, I just love him. He is, as I’ve said, to me the quintessential dom - the quintessential Kinkster. Maybe it’s the aesthetic, or the misfits of the misfits vibe his entire crew has going on, or maybe I’m just projecting my own ideal onto a big beef cake.

Of all the mental/emotional deep dives I could go on, I’m not here to muse on that.

I realized Marco had overtaken Kid for me when I found myself craving dark fics with Marco. Not the kind where he’s being dark, the kind where Teach has his face in the dirt and his ass in the air and is threatening to slaughter all the survivors if Marco struggles against him.

And I realized that one of the biggest reasons for that - and I think most dark content - is the validation it provides. That the things I survived weren’t as avoidable as I used to believe, they were neither my fault nor within my control.

It’s a validation that even strong people can be victims and being one doesn’t make you weak or worth less.

It provides a way to navigate the healing after ward, and because we see the darkest parts of the trauma we can see the messiest parts of that healing too. The good days that weave between the neutral ones that are tied down by the awful ones.

The validation that healing is messy. For our heroes as much as for us, for the people we admire and disdain.

And fiction, fan fiction especially with the added layer of connection I feel that exists, let’s us apply those traumas not just from the hands of villains, but also heroes, such as they may exist in the original world. Good guys can do bad things - the person your community exalts Can be the villain who hurt you. The delinquent who broke your nose can also be the one who pulls you from a burning building.

We are complex.

It’s easier to process that complexity on the canvas of fictional characters sometimes than to face it directly. And I think that’s okay. I honestly think it’s wonderful - a beautiful, if not often misunderstood side effect of creativity.

And sometimes? Sometimes we break those beloved characters and end the story with them shattered. Because that could have been our end. That is the What If we hadn’t survived.

And I don’t think we’re always aware of this - I know a few people who don’t even realize how traumatized they are. They’re flippant, coping with humor, about things that make your blood run cold when you hear them. Sometimes denial fuels people, and they’re okay because they’re too strong to be a victim, too functional to be broken.

So we don’t realize why that drive is there. Why we want to see certain events presented in fiction. Why it feels like relief, or why we cry at parts we wouldn’t expect to prompt tears.

But kink, fic, bdsm, etc. as long as you aren’t exploiting or harming someone real, then I don’t think there’s a single thing wrong with how dark your content gets.

(If you start actually wanting to harm someone though, please seek professional help. Your fantasy/coping lines are blurring with reality and you’re gonna need external assistance carving that line back into place.)

But, odd as it is, to me, bad things don’t happen to Kid (I mean the canon material beats him up enough as well). Kid’s the rock that weathers everything so his crew stays protected. So *I* stay protected. Even if he was broken he’d never admit to it, not in any way that would lead to processing it and healing from it.

But to me, he doesn’t break.

Marco can. But Marco can also heal from it, and I’m not talking about his Devil fruit. I’m talking about wounds you can’t just bandage or regenerate. He’s strong, so strong, but he’s been through the ringer, and you only need to apply a little more pressure… and then heal with him afterward.

That makes him, to me personally, more relatable. And thus back to the seemingly innocuous reason for this - that’s why he’s my #1.

[saiyanqueenreads]

Hunter-Centric Fanfic Recommendation List for The Owl House: Fics starting with T, U, & V

***Please observe any tags/warnings on each work before reading, as some stories may deal with triggering topics and situations***

The list will be updated periodically as I find great new stuff.

Tag you're it, Tag Tag you're it. by Lethezee Tailored to a T by loversbyjay take a moment to think of just flexibility, love, and trust by Love_Lucigoosey Take a Sick Day by KOKICHINOLIE Take these broken wings by ChildlikeGoblinQueen Terminal by EdwardEldritch testing the waters by clovariia Thank You For Finding Me by fairytalesandfolklore   Thanks to Her by ace_anarchistttt Thanks To Them (Epilogue) by sleepy_catz That Moment When Your Friend's Mom Finds And Reads Your Coping Mechanism Fan Fiction by redrasberries That Saved a Wretch Like Me by ChildlikeGoblinQueen That's Just the Nature of Pain by try_again_love

The Aftermath by redrasberries  The Agony of the Almost by Polyhexian The Atlas and the Avid Reader by Lollytea The Boiling Rain Slid Right Off by TempusLiberi The Book by redrasberries The Curse of Mortality by ObabScribbler The Deal by theprincessofdenial The dog days are over by kolapon The Dog Left Behind by Shiba_Liba The Drip of the Faucet by PandoraTheExplorer The Emperor is not a merciful man. by LigitnessBagels The Empress by redrasberries The Empty Nest In My Heart by Kohpon The Family's Tree (or, I Watch, You Dream) by jellyellie731  The Future's Overdue by ChildlikeGoblinQueen The ghosts who call your name by Melonteal The golden brother by VikingShadows The Hard Stuff by Polyhexian The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by fairytalesandfolklore The Hunter Files by PeridotKirishima The Importance of Cutting Your Losses (Before They Begin to Tangle at the Ends) by home_musicbox The King in Yellow by Obvious_Ghost The Lone Mourner by Drabbles_Of_Writing The Many-Cure Manicure by CassiePoppy45 The Measure of a Witch by BlunderStorm & Flustered_Finesse The Monster’s Empty Place by 16hawk   The Most Terrible Poverty by Cornerofmadness The one where the author deals with their recent and unexpected epilepsy diagnosis by projecting it onto a new blorbo by Polyhexian the other shoe by kathkin The Owl's Stray series by probablylesbean The Painful Part of Healing by Kestral the problem of evil by tristenthekitty The Rib Bone by wompire The Sailor Song by JuiceAstronaut the shared salt of spilled secrets by Elynn The Sharp Knife of a Short Life by ObabScribbler The Silent Language of Grief by WinterSky101 the sky is overcast and i'm sorry by stillateenageabomination The Sum of Our Parts by silv3rbloodalch3mist the sun shines brighter when you’re around by ApricotOatmeal the symbiotic relationship between ravens and wolves by tristenthekitty  The Titan Laughs in Flowers by LazlosLulls The Titan Weeps In Flowers by randomramblingsofme the trappings of sorrow by claudias The Weaving of a Tapestry by kolapon The Yawning Grave by Polyhexian

There by EmeraldArt there is love that doesn’t have a place to rest by boopiejokes There is no open window, but the floors still creep by theprincessofdenial There Was Good, and That's What Made It Worse by LollingCat There's Sunshine in Your Smile by Lollytea This Book Belongs To: by UnnieBeans Three covenheads and a grimwalker by Lindendragon they say these are the golden years by handsofink time is an illusion (help things make sense) by PPeasants To Ear is Human, To Forgive Divine by ObabScribbler to place trust by peterparkerpanic tomorrow’s here by bamboop Too Little, Too Late by TotallyNotASecretAO3Account Tribute by ForThoseWhoWait Truth or Scare by EmiKoizumi  Try Harder by Polyhexian Tumbling Out by Calaiti Two peas in a pod by Reonnex Tyto Aurantia by dragonpyre

Uncle Knows Best by toh_lover05 unsee by claudias

Variations and Fugue on a Theme by azhdarchidaen Vee's Fight by FireQuill31 villainous thing by Some_Dead_Guy

Fics Starting With: A / B, C, D / E, F, G / H, I / J, K, L / M, N, O, P / Q, R, S / T, U, V / W, X, Y, Z, #

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

wait i wanna ask u abt homestuck characters for the bingo but idk anything abt what genre of hs fan u are… u could be a midnight crew stan for all i know. uhhh u don’t have to answer any of these if u don’t want to but rose, kanaya, dave, karkat and/or any other homestuck character u projected onto when u were a teenager

Ok this is gonna be a long one because you asked me for 4 characters and whoever I projected onto and I was a strilonde motherfucker so I've done the four you asked about as well as Dirk and Roxy. I'll start with Roxy

My friends in middleschool got me into homestuck by assigning me Roxy kin. Which fair enough I am still kinda like that to this day. I didn't project onto her as hard as I did with Dave but I'm love her.

Dirk is my homestuck problematic fav I love him so much I liked it when he mailed his severed head to Jake because he was gay. A respectable flirting method if ever there was one.

I'll do Karkat next. My emotions on him are uncomplicated. I like him and he's dating my Blorbo so ... king shit. Starred in many a mediocre fanfic authored by baby me.

Now for Kanaya. I love her so much she's so cool I cosplayed her like not even that long ago I think it was 2 years ago. I freaked out my friend's cat. I like it when she kills people with her chainsaw. I say everyone's wrong about her but me because, and this applies to rose too, but less so because Rose had her whole alcoholism arc, I feel like the fandom portrays her as more competent and put together than she is just because her aesthetic is very poised. Shes a 13 year old disaster lesbian. She just also happens to be the mom friend. You will put respect on her name honestly smh.

I'm gonna do Dave and Rose together because I have a fun story about them so here's the bingo cards.

You guys are about to unlock forbidden mentally ill Jamie lore, so buckle up. When I was 13 I came out as a trans boy to my parents and asked to be put on testosterone and was denied. I was already in the throes of puberty, had been for a year and a half at that point. And I finally had the answer for why I felt so shitty about it and I had the solution and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it because I was essentially, as all children are under our current shitty legal model of family, my parents' property. I had no fucking rights and so I couldn't choose what puberty I was going to go through even though I would be much happier now if they had. But anyway point is I was able to understand and articulate what was going on and by all rights I should have transitioned back then, but there was still this barrier. It was the most frustrating thing in the world. Part of my coping strategy for this horrid injustice that was occurring in my life was to put Dave and Rose in a jar and shake them around. I had an ongoing comic that I drew that I think I intended to put online at some point but never did where Dave(FtM) and Rose(MtF) while stuck on the meteor went through the throws of puberty Rose got tall, started growing facial hair at an alarming rate, the whole bit. Dave suffered his binder becoming too small and periods. It was a whole thing. And they spent 3 years trying and failing to alchemize synthetic hormones. Meanwhile they were surrounded by and developing relationships with these trolls who didn't understand human puberty and there were many goofs and gaffs about these trolls, but especially Kanaya and Karkat, just not getting it in the gayest way possible.

[wholemleko]

Pls talk about your blorbo! What do you love about them?

I'm sure it's easy to tell that joxter is my blorbo hfhd I care him. Already I enjoy his canon personality, I find it quite relatable as I am always sleepy, I like making mischief and saying morbid things occasionally. I strive to be able to just be and be satisfied with existence itself the way he seems to. Now when it comes to fandom portrayals, my absolute favorite is @boorishbint's joxter, for a whole bunch of reasons. Like, from the mannerisms and his dialogue and his overall vibes, to the stories she built around him—the rifle and hatt honestly got me through some rough shit, they gave me something to look forward to and enjoy when there was very little else I found good in life. And I guess projecting onto this joxter helped for learning to cope with feelings of crushing guilt, self loathing and grief. So just all around. I love him. Probably the most important fictional character to me ever

[clowngremlin]

i wish i could talk about blorbo from comics but i absolutely can not talk to anyone about it because it makes me insane like i get this insane manic feeling in my body and i start talking a mile a minute and it’s like i hate him, i love him i want to poison him to nurse him back to health, he’s the worst, i think i could fix him, i have written 10 pages of an essay about him on google docs that will never see the light of day, he reminds me of someone i wish i could forget, he got me through the worst time of my life, i want to bash his skull in with a baseball bat, i want to hold him tenderly and wipe his tears and eyeliner when he cries, we are best friends, we are sworn enemies, he isnt that deep, he contains multitudes but only because i allow him to, i project all my feelings and fears onto him, i project my idealized ideas of how i wish someone would love me onto him, i used him to cope with the extensive trauma of my teenage years, i have literally written poetry about him, he’s the worst character in the whole comic, he didnt get enough pages to really be considered much of anything, i understand him, i want to hit him with a car, if i think too hard about him i get emotional, if other people like him i question why, i literally have dreams about him, he’s everything that’s wrong with people, i see my negative personality traits in him.....yes i am insane im so sorry everyone, i have been like this since i was 15 and read a fanfiction that like made him sympathetic and like never recovered because i like trauma bonded to the version of him and now the secret good version of him lives in my head and i will never truly be rid of him

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

omg i felt weird abt sending that ask but i was hoping it would inspire some dumping of thoughts, hell yeah i relate a lot actually being autistic/adhd and a trans guy. which is honestly why i’m caught off guard by my recent izzy fascination. i think i’d be less fascinated if i was involved in the fandom and had been bogged down by discourse lol. like i fully HATED him on my first watch when the show came out a few months ago and prayed on his downfall but then i set the show aside for a while and rewatched it last month and since then i can’t stop thinking abt him. i think it’s bc i’m at a place rn where i find it rlly hard to connect to ppl, have to shove down my feelings to get by on the daily, i’ve have a bunch of very emotional ppl around me my whole life who i’ve had to manage things for, and bc of my autistic interest with character tropes starting from a super young age i sometimes have to work to see other ppl as archetypes of themselves rather than fully fledged nuanced ppl. so i’m interested in psychoanalysing him but not excusing his stuff bc he’s fr the most unhealthily coping person in the show which is saying something. but tbh i think if i let my walls down i’d relate to ed more? but the walls existing makes me relate a lot to izzy rn i think. but not that much bc like hey sucks and i’m gay. i will say i never got the repressed sexuality stuff from him but that’s just me. i read it more as him being completely repulsed by romance and emotion bc it stirs something in him he rlly doesn’t want to confront. idk i’m in my izzy hands blorbo era rn and trying to avoid talking to the wrong ppl abt it dbsnbd sorry if it’s annoying

Dude you're so valid. I hope you get better at letting people in and keep working on your empathy. I usually see Izzy kinning as a red flag but it sounds like you're relating to the fact that he's the only character on the boat who isn't in the found family and to the fact that he projects things onto people which you seem to be self aware of so ill let it slide. Onto Blorbo from my shows.

I suppose one doesn't have to read him as repressed. Although I don't think that him being a repressed gay guy and him being completely repulsed by romance and emotion because it stirs in him something he doesn't want to confront are necessarily so different. Either way the vibe is that he's scared or resentful of his own feelings for Ed. I've never thought that he was necessarily pretending to be straight or anything. This is all head canon at this point but to me I think he's probably willing to admit his sexual attraction to some men. (He knows he's attracted to Ed and would probably admit it if the right person asked him in the right way but he'd never even let himself form the thought "I want to fuck Lucius" much less say it out loud despite it being objectively true) But I that being said I think a repulsion to gay love, which we know he has because of the whole "He's done something to my boss's brain" bit (and all of the baggage that implying queer love is a corrupting influence carries), is still repression. I suppose if he's aromantic (I have seen that head canon floating since Con said that he isn't interested in a romantic relationship at the C2E2 panel) maybe not but Aro people don't choose not to love, they just don't experience romantic attraction. Izzy Hands seems to actively choose not to love, romantic or otherwise, because he thinks love makes you weak (if the way he treats a love sick Edward is any indication anyway). So IDK how comfortable I am with putting him in the aromantic category, just because there are so few aro characters and one of them being a man who despises love and is the villain in a rom-com trying to keep the alloromantic main couple apart isn't a great look, but that's a whole other thing.

But yeah avoiding certain people is a good plan because you really have to avoid certain takes. Because it's not like Izzy is Kylo Ren, right, he's not utterly deplorable in that sort of way (I know Kylo got a redemption arc but it was a shitty one that failed to actually redeem him and he was still a space fascist don't at me). He's just a fucked up guy on a pirate ship, if there was ever a place to be a fucked up guy it would be on a pirate ship. But if we're gonna sympathize with him we have to avoid certain takes and certain people. Like we just can't be pretending that he's not motivated by homophobia, we can't be pretending that Ed's abusing him somehow, we can't pretend that there's nothing to the reading of him doing some racist things, we can't pretend that he's some hypercompetent babysitter who is the only one getting things done on the ship (even if that's how he sees himself it's not true, it's proven wrong by the events of the show).

All that to say I guess he's a fun blorbo as long as you're not vilifying Ed or missing the point of the character. Probably keep avoiding Izzy stans tbh.