#no one’s fault. just trauma and mental illness getting to me

[cuteniarose]

Tagged by @katkastrofa for the WIP game :)

Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then, tag as many people as you have WIPs

Okay, so.. I’m very much like Kat in that I don’t sort my stuff into folders (well.. I do with my art, but only after it’s been finished and posted because if I stick a WIP somewhere I can’t immediately see it I will forget about its existence. I have the object permanence of a newborn. Also, once something is labelled a WIP it is never getting done. Either I complete it in one sitting or I might as well delete it), and the thing is, I don’t name my WIPs either. For reference, my gdocs literally looks like this:

I really don’t write that much, the docs above are all either already posted or abandoned, and my notes app is full of stuff I cannot post on here so I have close to nothing to show off, but.. I suppose I can scavenge around for some scraps here and there

Feat. improvised descriptions, because as much as I would love to play russian roulette with a bunch of “untitled document” and “new note” options, no one’s gonna care for that (no one’s gonna care anyway, but you know…):

Haya fic

How to explain self harm to a five year old

Gentle and sweet hair cutting scene (that is three weeks overdue because my life fell apart and the last thing I wanted to do was write)

Cruel and painful hair cutting scene (that I completely forgot about but actually never finished, and it could stand to be rewritten, so it counts)

Angsty UtOS bit (that I’m never gonna finish because I wrote like 100 words then had a breakdown 🫠)

And I don’t have anyone to tag, so this bloodline (read as: tag game) ends with me :P

[fionnaskyborn]

I wonder if there is like a quota for how many fuckups a man can make in life. I don't know where I was going with this. I guess I just wish every step I made wasn't one in the wrong direction, or that I could at least backpedal out of bad decisions without any fatal consequences like damaging someone else. Life sucks.

[omohole]

i loooove college (i dont i really fucking dont) hahaah im cramming as many late/missed assignments as possible before the semester ends in four days wahoo yippee ahahahahaahah

[parkersgnome]

⭐️Mima Rants⭐️

I remember coming across slideshow on tik tok this about a year ago, and even *I* (as someone who used to be grossed out by proshipping) thought was ridiculous…

This is the title of the slideshow.

Just a heads up guys, just like our favorite ships, None of these stories are real.

And if they were based on actual events, wouldn’t it make more sense to make a video about that instead of making up shit that never happened?

But, Let’s go through each of these as if they were real stories, shall we?

First one

“Caleb uses the internet to deal with his trauma”, Alright, I’m gonna stop you right there.

Isn’t “Staying off the internet is beneficial for your mental health” something we learned in, idk, fucking grade school? Cyber safety PSAs in middle school? Something that dozens of people have screeched from the top of their lungs since social media was invented?

Who the heck told him that being on the internet was going to help with his trauma and improve his mental health???

His feelings are valid, I get that. He has every right to be disturbed by Sage’s writings and fantasies. However, it seems that Sage isn't encouraging these actions in real life and keeps them strictly within fiction. As long as it’s in text or art, Sage has every right to express his fantasies.

Anyways, Caleb should seek a better therapist who can teach him better coping mechanisms like going out for walks, yoga, baking, or some other fourth thing instead of browsing social media where there’s a good chance he can run into something that makes him uncomfortable.

Next one…

“Jackie is 10-”

Yeah no no no no no no.. no… NO.

10-years-old. That’s, like, what? 4th grade? Shouldn’t Jackie be watching cartoons, playing with toys, or better yet, playing outside? Why did her parents give her internet access? Why aren’t they monitoring what their elementary schooled daughter is watching online?

If Charlie was going out of her way to promote this to minors then I would say she’s in the wrong, but this story never implies whether her content was specifically targeted to and/or letting minors come on to her account.

I've never seen proshippers create accounts specifically targeting children. If Charlie makes it clear her content isn't for kids, then it's not her fault if some random little girl she doesn’t know ends up consuming it.

If Jackie started to think this was normal, then it is her parent’s fault for neglecting her online safety and allowing her to access adult-targeted content at an age when media literacy is at an all time low.

The last one

“dEGenErates LiKE hiM 🤓” 💀💀

Once again, unless you can present to me a REAL LIFE incest/pedophilia case where proshipping was involved, this is not a valid argument that fiction affects reality.

Alas, we're treating these stories as if they were real. If Trey feels compelled to SA his sister after seeing writings or drawings of problematic ships, this suggests he’s likely an untreated mentally ill individual, especially since he can't differentiate fiction from reality.

What? If Trey played GTA V and started shooting and robbing a bank because he wanted to be like Trevor Phillips, should we consider banning violent video games?

As proshippers, we do not endorse real-life criminals and genuinely terrible people. The essence of proshipping is that all negative or degenerate actions should be confined to fiction. Understand?

End of discussion.

Anyway, as ridiculous as that slideshow was, please refrain from harassing or bothering the artist who made it. They have the same freedom of speech we do, and stooping to harassment and bullying wouldn't make us any better than antis who promote such behavior.

[stuffieautism]

i’m a level 2/3 autistic who was not diagnosed until a couple months after i turned 18. instead, i was labeled as severely mentally ill and put through years of hospitalizations, day treatment, and therapies, and institutionalized for months. leaving me with trauma worse than i went in with, precisely because i was autistic, and they treated me with ableism for it despite not knowing what it was.

my semiverbality was seen as dissociation or plain old defiance. my meltdowns were seen as intentional and me being bad and disruptive and i was punished for them or called manipulative. my stimming was seen as a behavior that needed to be targeted and shamed and mocked by staff and peers alike. my sensory issues were just things i needed to be “desensitized” to (which doesn’t work that way). i was yelled at for sensory aversions and overload. i was berated and bullied if i asked them to stop blasting music or making so much noise. all while continuing or increasing the intensity of the stimuli to get back at me. i was forced to eat until i threw up nearly every day at one place and then yelled at for throwing up and having access to comfort items taken away.

my needs were ignored. support was denied or removed. i wasn’t able to take care of myself. and rather than being treated with compassion and given actual help, i faced more and more restrictions and punishments and shaming.

no one listened to me when i said how much it hurt, that i was actually trying, that i was in pain, that i couldn’t control it, that i didn’t understand what i did wrong, that SOMETHING IS WRONG.

my autistic traits were a problem with me. they said it was my fault i couldn’t do this or kept doing that. i was doing it because i was a problem child. i was lying about not being able to control it. i was lying about how hard things were and the harm they caused.

i was diagnosed when i was 18. after experiencing torture for years. higher support needs autistics can go undiagnosed. and it doesn’t mean we have the Smart Outcast experience. it can also mean we’re put through a different path of abuse for disabled children. not having an autism diagnosis did me no favors. it kept me safe from nothing. late diagnosis doesn’t always mean people thought you were normal. it doesn’t always mean you grew up low support needs. sometimes it means they would rather have a “mentally ill” child who’s problems are a moral failing of its own lack of effort than admit you weren’t lying.

[annabelle--cane]

I guess the thing that makes me not so fond of Jon's addiction allegory is that it's only coherent to a certain extent? Like I think people sometimes forget that he's actively violating these people

anon, through no fault of your own you have accidentally hit upon my sleeper agent trigger phrase. I have layers of answers to this.

so first off, yeah, it's not a 1:1 direct metaphor, it's a soupy dream logic fantasy plot device with flavors of a lot of different things. there's quite a lot of addiction in there, there's some abuse of power, there's some cyclical nature of trauma, there's a dash of disability, there's a few notes of gendered violence, there's a good bit of just. violence violence and being kind of a motherfucker because goddammit it feels good to be an active agent about something in your life, even if it's just choosing to be a worse version of yourself than you strictly need to be. a lot of tma's worldbuilding is very allegorical, but apart from aspects of individual statements nothing really matches up quite 1:1 with a real world counterpart, and if more things did then it probably wouldn't be a fantasy show anymore.

secondly. okay to contextualize this answer a little bit I have a kind of hypothetical video essay project about vampirism and addiction that I like to spend a few hours thinking about every so often but am almost certainly never going to make because the full research burden required is a lot higher than I actually have the time to properly do. but because of that I've spent a lot of time sorting through why framing vampires as addicts really works for me in a way that it doesn't seem to for everyone, and I think a lot of my thoughts on that also apply to jon. there's going to be a bit of a detour here before we get back to talking about tma, but we'll get there, I prommy.

I've seen a lot of people take issue with various paranormal addiction allegories because, a lot of the time, the act that is meant to metaphorically represent the act of use itself is something that is directly and inherently harmful to others, e.g. drinking human blood, handing over power to your hedonistic Evil alter ego, holding the cursed amulet and going crazy going stupid, slurping trauma out of the head of some guy you ran into on a boat to norway, etc., and yeah, I do get that. substance use is not inherently harmful like that to anyone except sometimes the user themself, and addicts are not inherently fucked up and destructive people; those are dangerous stereotypes that often lead to the demonizing of a whole group of sick people.

here's the thing for me, though: those are definitely truths I want explored and represented when it comes to portrayals of non-allegorical actual addicts, but fantasy fiction isn't for showing the world as it is, it's for showing a subjective fun house mirror version of reality where certain aspects are minimized and magnified depending on how it feels to live through it. and yes, absolutely in real life drug use is not an inherently evil act and it does not make you an inherently evil person, but... doesn't it kind of feel like that? sort of? absolutely no one is living their best life nor on their best behavior while experiencing any kind of major mental illness episode, and when it comes to addiction you've got a very clear tangible symbol of when The Episode is happening that it feels like you have much more control over than when it comes to other illnesses. it's also a thing where people are a lot more likely to be openly angry and distrustful of you if they find out it's happening. so you mix together the ideas of "I know I get worse as a result of doing this one specific thing" + "I act less like myself when I'm using, it rearranges my priorities and I care less about hurting people because that's what happens when you're experiencing The Horrors" + "society at large/people directly around me are pretty quick to say that doing this is evil," and you get the subjective emotional result of "I hurt people by using and it makes me monstrous." I tend to respond to those kinds of paranormal allegories like they're just cutting out the middle man of those subjective fears. "using makes me monstrous" -> "using is monstrous."

anyway. jon archivist.

don't get me wrong, I totally understand if this aspect of metaphor doesn't gel for some people and they only like taking it exactly as far as the text explicitly makes them, but I really get a lot out of reading jon's connection to the fears as addiction precisely because he does genuinely awful things to people as a result of it. he's a person in a very bad physical and mental place with little to no support who is constantly being told by both allies and enemies that he's already a monster just by being alive, and he copes with that by secretly falling further and further into an compulsive act of consumption that skews his priorities and makes him care less about hurting people because at least sometimes getting to be the cause of pain makes him feel a little bit less powerless when he has to be the subject of pain the rest of the time. then he's found out and is made to stop, and he has to grapple not just with the physical toll of withdrawal but with knowing there is a not insignificant part of him that will excuse any act of malice if he knows he'll feel better afterwards.

the end of tma is very explicit in the fact that the rules of its world are shaped by the subjective worst fears of those who live in it, it's "an exercise in unreliably reality" as jonny sims put it once, and I think that principle extends backwards in some ways to apply to the rest of the show. I don't think the fact that there are only entities of fear and not hope or love is meant to be a full commentary on the total nature of the real world, it's a reflection of what fear and suffering can make the world feel like. eric and melanie both go to really harsh extremes to extricate themselves from the fears and live peaceful lives, and in both cases something happens that foils their plans (getting murdered + the apocalypse, respectively), but I don't think the intended message is to say that is definitively how real life works, they are metaphors for the limits of individual agency in larger systems and represent two types of worst-case-scenarios. similarly, I don't think reading jon as an addict implies that addiction inherently involves violence or that the reactions of those around him were completely unjustified, it's just a subjective exploration of the kinds of fears that can come with addiction dialed up to 100.

[paradamaxima]

CoD fandom stop being ableist towards Frank Woods challenge (impossible)

Not only do I see posts from people whining about how basically “Woods is useless now” but I even saw someone draw him without his wheelchair and standing upright

If you can’t draw wheelchairs, either learn to do it or don’t draw the character at all; wheelchairs aren’t even hard to draw in the first place either, you’re just ableist and lazy

Love how notable it is that everyone’s now treating Woods like a useless burden when what happened to him wasn’t even his fault and also… that’s completely untrue because disabled people are still able to do plenty of shit (not to mention, that sentiment is as ableist as you can get because it stinks of eugenics)

Reminds me of how real life veterans are treated after not only physical injuries that result in them becoming physically disabled but also mental trauma that result in them becoming mentally disabled/ill; if you don’t view real life veterans as useless burdens, why would you view Woods as one?

[rzyraffek]

Slashers with y/n that just gets along with everything

Like slasher could litteraly kill somone near y/n and she would be like alr alr whats really important is that you are happy🤠😎. Im sorry that first 2character had super long headcanons while last ones have way less :( I had no ideas Request open!

Billy Lenz

He always expects some sort of negative response when he calls people and when he heard new voice on the Phone he got even more exited cuz new person new reaction! He totally didnt expect her to just go "yeah yeah sure buddy, anyways... how is your day man? Cuz im so so tired...*starts normal converstation*

He probably tries to stay in character but he is so caught of Guard he doesnt know how to react really (hehe the table has turn)

Now he kinda hopes that she will pick up cuz shes very intresting😈 billy likey

"Ew its this creep again! He is asking for you y/n? Of please dont tell me you befriended him??" "So what? He said hes favourite fruit is strawberry he cant be that bad!" *billy saying slurs on the phone*

You need to constantly tell him that, no Billy no harrasing women isnt sexy, you arent quirky, you are mentally ill

"Y/n i killed that bitch that was gossiping about you 🧍 " "👍good for you billy im glad you found healthy way to cope with that negative emotion😇" "on god"

His whole moral compass is created around the simple question 'does it hurt y/n?' .1:no it doesnt so feel free to do it .2 do not do it, she will ban Billy from sweets (bad ending)

The man from hush

This guy. This dude. This Little gremlin. He is upset that he gets no reaction! Like please oh please act all angy when he 'acidently' shot tire in her car! But oh no ofc no, she had to be like "oh its okay honey i have backup in garage🥰" hes like HHUH SINCE WHEN WE HAVE GARAGE

Like tbh thats how i imagine how they met: he saw her, he wanted to hunt her, she was so chill that she didnt even leave her household while the power was off and he went inside and just saw her having lil nap on couch. 🧍🤨erm exuse me gurl im trying to roleplay epic hunter here tf

He probably kidnaped her cuz she was too weird to just kill her but he didnt want to risk her calling police. He probably tied her up and yeeted her on backseats. And then she begun judging music on the radio"yo big guy can i get some good music taste?" "What? Whats wrong with Taylor Swift?"

He will overshare everything to kinda check where is her limit if it comes to being chill "yeah so i killed this old lady.." "im sure you had good reason🥰" "🤨... anyways... yeah so i was drinking some redbull when some guy said i look ugly so i shoot his head off and-" "HEY HEY hold up geez you CANT drink Energy drinks?? Bestie you know it is unhealthy?? Also you like hunt for sport it will ruin your condition!? How you gonna shoot people with shakey hands?? You crazy or something?" "Damn😔"

Micheal myers

I tried to put him here but i realised he will be as chill as her.

Like he can give her gifts covered in blood and she' just going to clean it and wear it like nothing happened or completley ignore it

He cares about this stuff as much as y/n so like not at all. I mean tbh theres is a bit of difrence: shes at least positive about it! Like "yeah micheal go for it, love🥰😇 i know its hard to cope with trauma take it all out alr?" Shes trying to be a good supporting gf not her fault she never had serial killer bf!

Brahms Heelshire

He lives for attention! What do you mean the war crime he commited this lunch break is okay!?!? Baby pleasee

But this negativity disapears the moment he realised he can get a lot of positive attention when he will do some nice stuff! "Oh honey I didnt kill any rats today" "oh that's amazing brahms I'm sure you and the rats inside walls will get along well soon🥰" (rats in walls bully brahms)

Please complement him or he will get a tantrum and destroy something

Brahms and rats have very hard past i might do seperate hc about that

Ghostface

"Look babe! My newest victim *shows photo*" "ugh baby...😰 you NEED to buy new camera or watch some youtube tutorials about how to take good photos" "aw man whats wrong with my pictures 😔"

Otherwise y/n supports his hobbies! People need to grow😇 (and he needs to grow up)

If theres 2ghostfaces(like in most movies) they will bet money on how long you gonna keep this 'do whatever as long as youre happy' act. Well they didnt know that this wasnt an act but her personality

Also they will probably try to use this chillnes aginst her like "oooh y/n something terrible happened! I crushed my car oh what will i do!" "Alr bestie i will drive you over there😇" "😈omg you are so nice i totally didnt expect that(heheh i dont need to pay for gas today (hes very evil))

[freakenomenon]

teds genuine obsession with ellen needs to be talked about more actually. like everyone waters it down to either just him being insane or just being misogynistic and lowkey racist but there is. so much more to it than that. swear to god everytime he goes on a rant he never hops off this womans PEEEEEEEENISSS. the dick eating is insane and i need it to be discussed. there is never a moment where ellens name is not in his mouth and it drives me insane. specifically for the games iteration, this is likely because of his sexual trauma with women. its not an excuse to become the abuser, but it is an explanation. people dont just BECOME like ted overnight. never ever is mental illness an excuse to be as horrible as ted is to ellen, but its still like. essential to his character to realize that hes not all just rainbows and calling computers daddy. hes actively like. a creep. its kind of insane to me how while in the same breath of , not acknowledging her achievements , dehumanizing her to the point of only seeing her as either a sex object or someone to be saved for his own satisfaction , BASHING her for being used as a sex object when HE ( and the other 2 , i am not counting benny simply because his loss of bodily autonomy and ability to think straight is not his fault at all ) IS THE ONE PERPETUATING THAT SYSTEM , and overall just treating her like an object to be used in GENERAL. he. puts her on some kind of pedestal. like some kind of saving grace, salvation. acts as if shes choosing to be nice to him because she loves him. my nigga shes afraid of you get the phallus off your TONGUE.

[k9punkout]

AND IF I SAID THAT ivan's perception of till's determination and hostility was generally wrong and unintentionally undermining of his actual mental instability. IF I SAID THAT this pov rubbed off on the fandom and plays into several till mischaracterizations. WHAT THEN.

okay so hear me out on this one. ivan's acknowledged that he could never quite understand till like he could all the other children. everyone else fell into a sort of pattern, a puzzle that can be solved with a simple analysis and adapted behavior. everyone except till.

till was no solvable puzzle. all the pieces to him were distorted, broken, missing. a living hurricane, a walking contradiction. he was gentle in his violence, quiet in his loudness, complex in his simplicity. ivan could get no true read on him, and that's why he grew so drawn to him.

and while i do believe that till is just an eccentric and unpredictable person at heart, a large part of his chaotic nature is due to his trauma. his rapid and intense mood swings, his aggressive behavior, his easily overwhelmed mind, his fluctuating ego, and many other aspects to him are all signs of abuse related mental instability. ivan saw all of that, witnessed all the abuse and all its side effects, but it never really struck him that holy shit, this guy needs psychological help.

and it's not like that's HIS fault either. Ivan was never really taught how people work, he learned via absorbing how the other children interacted instead (which isn't really efficient, he's no mind reader or anything). i wouldn't be surprised if he had no clue that mental illness even EXISTED; he always referred to himself and sua as simply "twisted" rather than trying to figure out if they could be helped or fixed, or WHY they stood out from the others.

he never even questioned his own hatred for himself. he simply thought it was reasonable, because of course, who wouldn't hate a monster like him? once someone knows who he is deep down, there is no redeeming quality that he can genuinely exhibit to exonerate himself from his rotten, detached mindset. in his mind, he deserves the isolation.

ivan truly sees himself as the worst person in the world, which makes till, by comparison, simply a confusing kid who isn't scared to fight back. ivan thinks till's willpower stems from great mental strength rather than desperation and fear. this would lead him to both misinterpret till's actions and overestimate his mental strength, all while underestimating how rapidly his sanity is withering.

this is shown quite a few times around the series. in "Confession," he refers to till as the "victim of his shallow emotions," demonizing himself and painting till as his victim. as if till could do no harm. as if till was the ONLY victim here. (i can't stop thinking about how much till would've hated that word. victim.)

in a slightly more elaborate retranslation of Cure that someone on this app did (i tried to find it but i sadly couldn't), the word "scars" ("even if your cruel words carve scars beneath my eyes") was said to be better translated into "scratches." a flesh wound. nothing debilitating, nothing severe, just painful for a while, and then gone. insignificant. the harm he inflicts is insignificant compared to everything else that he is.

i'll stick around, i'll stay, because the bruises we leave on each other are nothing compared to the spark he ignites within me.

till punches and kicks and screams and snarls, and to ivan, it's no problem, just something that makes him unique. he'd do anything to see him fight. so what if he gets caught in the crossfire? so what if he's killed while he's at it? it's all worth it. till could just continue on without him, it'd be so easy. he's strong, he never cared for him all that much anyway.

till is unpredictable, till is unique. it's just the way things work. nothing about it needs to be changed. the destruction he causes to himself and to others doesn't need to be fixed, it's already perfect. he's perfect, in all his imperfections.

THATS where the toxicity lies in ivantill. not because ivan is totally possessive and wants till to belong to him and only him or whatever some of the fandom says. but because ivan so obsessed with till that he'll die for him while calling him his victim. that he'll acknowledge till's hostile behavior and his quickness to rage and violence and consider it something to be loved rather than concerned about or feared. he'll hone in on his own flaws, never acknowledging till's, never seeing how they're destroying EACH OTHER, and exclusively focusing on the harm that HE'S done to till.

it's why ivan was always bothering him. he wanted to see him lose his temper, wanted him to fight and struggle. (more often than not, this was a good thing, as it often happened whenever till was sad/out of it, but just because something's beneficial in the moment doesn't mean it makes for a healthy relationship).

of course, none of this means that ivan DIDNT want till to be happy. he wouldn't have tried to escape with him if that was the case. he liked seeing till angry, but not any more than he hated seeing till miserable. despite not quite understanding him, he still wanted the best for that boy.

i think ivans warped perspective affected the way many people characterize till. a lot of people treat him as a more gentle person than he is in canon, and while it's true that he's mentally weak, he'd never cower in the face of someone stronger than him, like many people seem to think. he's vulnerable in the explosive and reactive sense, not in the powerless and delicate sense.

so far, we've gotten so much of ivans perspective of till that people seem to forget that he literally committed a murder in round 2. and he looked REALLY happy abt that shit. my mans freddy was a father of two and till did NOT care. not to mention that he didn't even spare acorn a GLANCE the entire round.

idk man the guy's a lil cuckoo loca we might need to remember that

[theweirdwideweb]

Can we have more film club updates? That was amazing and I’m proud of you!!!!

Well you remember how my friend was also at film club? She and I hung out on Christmas Day. We went to my sister's house for lunch. We played with my niece, nephew, and mother in a tent and then went to Nosferatu. My friend has been closer to the film club asshat than I have and asked if I wanted to see his text to her about The Incident, but warned me it was bad. Since nothing he said to my face about mental illness upset me because duh, not a shred of truth to it--- actually what he said about me in the text upset me. He tried to convince my friend that I was venting narcissistic rage at him the entire 45 minutes before he ran his mouth off and I stormed out. He said I am, in fact, a toxic narcissist who is in active addiction, not recovery, and I'm trying to lure my friend into a codependent relationship. It got to me. Such a reality warping piece of gaslighting. I had therapy today and talked about it. It triggered a lot of trauma. The doctor and I talked about how my mother would mercilessly abuse me as a child and then when I was angry or upset she'd accuse me of bullying and abusing her. We also talked about how the man I was in love with all my 20s would come sleep in my bed 3 nights a week, hold me, give me shoulder massages, fuck me and then act like I should just know better when I wanted to be his girl. For 8 years he led me on that way and then beat the shit out of me. I talked with the doctor about how in my early 20s in the recession when the unemployment rate for my demographic was over 50% I had a small job filling bottles with supplements for $9/hr and how the gagillionaire CEO dressed me down within 30 seconds of meeting me: told me I was fat, depressed, and obviously hadn't gotten laid recently. When I said that wasn't true he said, "Well it wasn't as good as you wanted it to be, was it?" We talked about how I was minding my business on the train home from work just after Christmas 2019 when a completely random woman pepper sprayed me in the face and just stepped off the train. I possess a deep fear that somehow I am marked out for cruelty. Greg, the film club asshat, tipped his hand by calling me a narcissist. He's a narcissist. He's the one who doesn't give a damn about people and tries to warp reality so he appears a victim. Even though I knew it wasn't true when I got home from Nosferatu I was taking internet tests to see if I have empathy, signs you're a narcissist, googling "what is active addiction." Am I hurting people and I don't realize it? When I think people think I'm smart and funny am I just being completely delusional? Am I making a fool of myself? No, I'm not any of those things. But it hurt me because I just have this sense that there's something wrong with me. Something that repulses people, makes them hate me. Even strangers can pick me out of a crowd. Is it because I'm ugly? Is it because I move my body strange? Is it because they read neurodivergence on me? It feels like my fault. I've always felt that way. Like if I could just fix myself and be good enough that I could stop the abuse and have friends and hobbies and a safe place for myself. I've never been safe in my whole life and it gets to me. It's like how I feel trapped by mental illness. I try as hard as I can and it will never leave me. It's as if I'm in an abusive relationship with life itself. I was marked out at birth by my abusive parents and biology. I can take comfort that I'm a better person than all these abusers---but I still lose. I lost that job filling bottles. I lost the love of my youth. Now I lost the film club, too, something which I felt proud of. I said, "See? I can go out into the city and find friends. When I talk to people they see I'm smart and funny and they like me."

[echo-and-dust]

now that my brain has somewhat unscrambled itself i have gotten most of my thoughts in order about season 3.

and the first thing i will say is: i loved it.

while it was gutwrenching and polarizing in some ways and i feel that i am entitled to financial compensation for what its done to my mental health, i loved this season for pretty much almost everything it did.

i cannot fault people for having issues with much of the characterization and plot choices made—that’s been the trend during the entire run of the show after all, and imo it’s a testament to the phenomenal way it generates nuance—but i wanted to share my feelings on the recurring opinions i’ve seen about some of these things.

first, i do not blame simon at all for the things he said in the final scene. he’s a child who has been receiving endless verbal and physical harassment on top of all the trauma he is still trying to heal from. he just watched his boyfriend lash out in anger and hurt—while not at him, but it must’ve been a close resemblance of how he might’ve seen micke act. at least, that's what i thought, though i've seen others say otherwise.

and yes, wille is not micke, but just because wille’s source of outbursts is different from micke’s doesn’t mean simon is wrong in drawing similarities. at least he's finally getting a true glimpse into what wille has had to deal with. i've honestly grown to like that they didn't have simon immediately comfort him though; wille's mental illness is not his fault, but it is his responsibility, and instead of pushing a message of unhealthy co-dependence, the show has simon be honest: "but i see that everything hurts you and that hurts me too." and to me, that's so important.

plus, it doesn't make their love any less genuine. wille is a victim of the circumstances; he is not evil, and he is not undeserving of simon. he just has a lot of growing and healing to do, a lot of unlearning and exposure therapy because he's still blinded by privilege even when he tries not to be.

speaking of, i have so many thoughts about wille that i feel like i need to save for its own separate post, but to sum them up: i'll still defend him with my life, and he needs to get the fuck away from that institution.

also, the fact that the responsibility of controlling simon's media decisions was placed solely on wille confused me at first like—why wouldn't they get a professional to give him proper media training?

then i realized, this could be the royal court's way of sabotaging their relationship. they knew that making wille the one to tell simon what he can and cannot say or post would create distance and animosity between them. despite the ramifications of simon's behavior on social media, it seems they still thought it best to have his boyfriend be the one to try to mold him into the system. because they knew that's how they could get rid of him. in conclusion, fuck the royal court (we been knew but still).

one of the standouts this season was their transparency regarding the show's politics. it not only works well with the show's arc (wilmon is public, everything's out in the open now and there's nothing to hide), but also it felt necessary at a time where censorship has been rapidly gaining momentum. it felt so refreshing for these characters to talk so openly about racial discrimination and queerphobia and class disparities, forcing both character and viewer to acknowledge that they exist and you should feel uncomfortable about it.

i don't think i can add much more to what was already said about it—most of the fandom is more eloquent and observant than i am anyway—i just wanted to reinforce how important this season is to myself and the story even with how controversial it is to fans right now. a lot of people may disagree with me and that's fine.

[zutarasbuff]

Found this somewhere on Tumblr, it infuriated me to a great extent and forced me to crush the “coloniser-colonial romance” accusation against the Zutara nation. For this, you need to read everything quite carefully that will be presented to you.

So people who accuse Zutara use this narrative that Zuko had a princely life as a colonizer, unlike Katara. Now look at the ground reality:

Katara’s mother Kya lied to Yon Rha that she was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe to save her daughter. A similar act was done by Ursa (Zuko’s mother) who killed Firelord Azulon with her potion as part of her deal with Ozai to save the life of her son Zuko and got banished eventually. That makes us come to one certain conclusion:

Both Zuko and Katara spent greater part of their life without their mothers and this impacted their childhood badly as we find them dealing with the trauma of loss even after they hit puberty.

As if the absence of a mother was not enough, when Hakoda (Katara’s father) leaves with the fleet for the war, it’s almost the same time when we find Ozai getting immersed in attacking other nations, so much so that he’s never there for both of his children. Technically speaking, even if Ozai was there physically, he was never emotionally available for his children being a narcissistic father.

I would say that Zuko had the worst childhood experience as compared to Katara because Katara had a brother who always supported his sister in dealing with the trauma, but we don’t see that in the case of Zuko whose own sister used to bully him right from the childhood for being too weak and the mom’s pet.

Now let’s analyze the colonizer part. Unfortunately, Zuko was born to a father who was not just the worst ruler but an equally worse son, brother, husband, and father. One can say that Zuko’s only fault was to hail from a wrong family but other than that, he was never a colonizer. You may ask why. I will give you a reason.

It’s not just Katara who has to bear the ill effects of the war that was imposed on her, but in many ways Zuko was a direct victim of what we call “Emotional Imperialism”. In psychology, it’s a condition where the colonizers not just physically take control of their colonies, but they start infusing their ideals deep into the mentality of their subjects as well.

Coming back to the case of Zuko, we find that he never gets to formulate the normal father-son relationship with Ozai, rather Ozai treats both his children as his humble subjects who need to obey him unquestionably and need to be perfect as his subjects. He’s in every sense not just a narcissistic parent but a controlling one as well who emotionally traps both his children and wants to rule over them at every cost. The apparent manifestation of this emotional imperialism is evident through:

Zuko’s quest to be the best firebender

When the colonizers start ruling over a certain colony, it’s the colonials who feel the need to be validated by their masters. It’s their first survival strategy that they embrace the change as they know resistance is going to be of no use. They simply adapt themselves to the new ideals that are set forth by their ruling masters. Similarly, Ozai always wanted his children to be the absolute embodiment of Azulon’s great bloodline and both his children obliged to his desires because they feared the firelord. Therefore, his stiff standards force both his children to compete against each other from a very young age. This is the worst form of emotional imperialism where the subjects simply want some validation in return and therefore they are ready to even forget their kinship. That’s what we find as Zuko repeatedly wants to “get his honor back and win the trust of his father”. What do you think this honor is? It’s not the quest for being the next heir to the throne, rather it’s being the absolute best in the eyes of the master who controls both the siblings. We know Ozai has a manipulative nature and this relates exactly to the manipulative attitude of a colonizer who puts the colonials against each other.

Zuko’s almost absent friend circle

Have you ever seen the modus operandi of the colonizers? They alienate their subjects so that the subjects find no way of self-expression and eventually give up to the demands of their masters. That’s exactly the scenario that propagates in Zuko’s life. Other than Mai and Ty Lee we don’t even find his friends throughout the series. Isn’t it a bit strange that despite being a prince, he has no guy friend of his age? He has no friends at all. It’s because the master (Ozai) wanted so. The siblings never get much exposure to the outside world. When we draw a comparison of Zuko’s situation, then Katara seems to be at an advantage in that she found a peer group that allowed her to grow further and overcome her insecurities. Zuko, however never got a chance to blend into an actual peer group and that kept him secluded throughout and gave him his introverted persona. Don’t you find it strange that as a friend Zuko got no one but his uncle who had a lot of age differences and the opinions differed too? This created a rift further maybe because Zuko felt that somehow his feelings were not interpreted well by Uncle Iroh. Compared to his “angry guy” persona, he grows a lot more friendly when he finds the gang or should we say people of his age. This allows him to understand his persona in a constructive way and he strives to alter the course of his life afterwards.

Identity crisis

Out of all the characters on ATLA, people often say that Zuko is the one with the most complex attributes because he is not even sure of his “destiny”. Sounds familiar? Eh? Well, this is the typical case of an identity crisis existing in the subjects of a colony. Zuko goes through this phase where he is always striving hard to explore his identity, and his destiny thus fueling his internal rage as well. A kaleidoscopic journey is what he follows. Sometimes it’s rage, sometimes regret and sometimes he even questions the actions of his father. By the end, his driving force to change his alliances is nothing but this very identity crisis. This makes me remember a very interesting observation that whenever he’s near the gang, he’s a bit cranky and at the same time uneasy because he looks at the gang as the polar opposite of himself. To a caged bird who has accepted his fate, even the slightest call of resistance feels like Hades’ call and that’s why he repeatedly aims to avoid Aang’s calls for forming a friendship because he is afraid of peeking into his resisting side. That’s the typical thing you find in Haru who despite being a fine earthbender resists waging a war against the firebenders who roam freely in his village at first. So would you blame Zuko for never resisting the colonization when as a subject it was inherent to his mentality for a long time?

A harsh realisation

People who degrade Zutara with this stupid claim that Katara was the only one who “lost everything” need to get their brains checked thoroughly because when we compare her loss to the magnitude of the loss faced by Zuko at the end of the war, the comparing scale diverts wildly in Zuko’s favor. Though many of you know this; I will recall it for you again. Katara lost her mother to the war but in the end, she got lifelong friends to cherish with her brother as well father. On the contrary, even during the war, we find that Zuko loses not only his mother, his father, and his sister in the worst possible way. It means all his family members are lost to him in every sense when the war ends. Now some of you will come to me with the argument that the gang eventually finds Ursa back but how? With her memories all erased. It means that the war has not just left him with permanent emotional wounds but it has further taken the very idea of a family from his life.

We zutarians never ship Zutara together because we “just find them good together” but it’s deeper than that. It’s because Zuko was the one who understood Katara’s quest for Yon Rha in order to find answers behind her mother’s death in addition to revenge. This is because deep down he was always looking for the answers of his mother’s (who was the only real person known to him) banishment. That’s exactly what we find after Zuko becomes the firelord. The first thing he does is asking Ozai questions and being certain that he’s finally gonna tell everything. We ship them together because Katara was the only person who understood the value of Zuko jumping in front of Azula’s lightning to save her. We ship them together because we believe if it had become a potential canon, maybe both of them could have helped each other in healing with their individual traumas and creating a real family together.

[theoryofthemultiverse]

Hoyo‘s Doctors as your psychiatrist/therapists:📋

Synopsis: A therapist/psychologist is a person that listens to your thoughts and feelings and resolves problems through talking. A psychiatrist on the other hand relies on medications to treat an mental illness.

Characters: Baizhu, Dr. Ratio, Il Dottore

AN:I love the trinity of them and since y’all enjoyed the sleeping headcanons I brought something new again! It’s kinda wholesome.

~•~•~~•~•~~•~•~~•~•~~•~•~~•~•~~•~•~~•~•~~•~•~~•~

Baizhu🐍

He is really listening to everything in such an empathic way, he tries his best to validate your feelings and it would be in his expertise to show you how to deal with them.

His priorities would lay in making you recognize how you feel about given situations and help you setting boundaries. He would also dive deeper into childhood events that caused certain behaviors and traumas.

I can kinda see him having a therapy animal(not just Changsheng, you can also cuddle her, but maybe he also has a fluffy cat, or dog) . Like a calm pet that will simply lay with you and help you relax so you open up to him (only if you wanted it tho, otherwise he’ll keep it away ;)

Without a doubt he would be on the therapist/psychologist side.

Dr. Ratio🎓

The problem solver par excellence.

He fairly doesn’t do much about your feelings. Don’t get me wrong, he will definitely listen to you tell him about them, and validate them. He will also take them into the equation of solving your problem, but his main focus would be to solve the problem and come up with ways to solve them, as well as ways how you can cope with them should they not be able to be solved at the given moment.

So while he kinda works more like a psychologist he would also have the qualifications to prescribe some medication, yet if he would feel like he needs someone with a broader spectrum on that topic he would send you to:

Il Dottore🧪

Out of all 3 probably the one that is mostly focused on treating the problem through medications, so leaning towards psychiatrist.

But he is hella good at that, like really, that man knows so many substances that there are no limits to finding the perfect description. In 90% of the time he gets a perfect substance for your problems, but in the other 10%? Don’t worry about coming to him and telling him the medication didn’t do what you would have hoped it would do. He will probably find something better then according to the symptoms you mention.

If you were discouraged by one kind of medicine not working he would subtly try to make you feel better by blaming him,or the medicine in a humorous way so you see it’s not your fault for the medicine not working.

„Really it’s not your fault the stupid medicine didn’t take effect. I should have just known better and taken -sets new medicine on the table- this one all along.“

[sanzy4]

Arcane spoilers ahead-

The way I see hate for Vi and Jinx for being the cause of each others misfortunes is absolutely crazy. They were both victims and products of a corrupt society. One was just raised to be a hero and the other was raised to be a weapon.

I had an argument with someone the other day who said and I quote , “the sole reason powder became jinx was powders fault alone. She was always a psychotic and mentally ill person. She should’ve just listened to her sister and cuz of her every one is dead. Tbh she deserved what she got” . It annoys me first off cuz Powder was never psychotic for wanting to help out. Yes we all hope she could’ve stayed home like her sister said cuz that could’ve prevented a lot but powder never knew the severity of the hexcore just like how Jayce and Viktor didn’t either and she didn’t know what was at play at Silcos little hideout near the bridge. Vi is 15 years old and Powder is 11. Both have been raised in very terrible circumstances that they keep getting exposed to no matter how much Vander tried to prevent it. Their parents were killed by enforcers and they had to witness violence from the very start. It does terrible things to your mental health. Silco ended up using all her trauma as a fuel to make her a weapon for his cause rather than giving her the help she needed. Without any form of therapy or a support system her situation got even more worse. With the “oh Powder should’ve stayed home” argument you can easily also say “oh well vi should’ve listened to Vander instead of turning herself over to the enforcers because that ultimately killed Benzo and left Vander defenseless which is what got him captured in the first place”. But it doesn’t work that way. Vi is a very brave minded individual who doesn’t really like being told what to do. She will do what she believes is right for the right cause even if it means sacrificing herself in the process. Powder has always looked up to her sister. In the process she did a very similar thing fueled by the desire to finally prove to her friends and family that she wasn’t a jinx like many had teased her. That decision of hers ultimately ended up negatively impacting the ppl around her but to say she was psychotic at that point of her life is wild.

It’s the same for the people who say Vi was a terrible sister. I think Vi is an amazing older sister who really did the best she could in the circumstances she was provided. She even spent 7 years in the prison thinking about her sister every day hoping she was ok, doing everything she could she save her. And in the case of the alternative universe, it wasn’t perfect because Vi was dead but it was perfect because hextech was never invented and Silco read that damn letter.

I think a lot of the sisters relationship was based off misunderstanding and their insecurities and mental health overpowering their will to make amends. Not to mention Silco has isolated and manipulated Jinx but saying all she had and ever will have was him. He hid everything he could about Vi and everything else and fed lies about how she was being replaced and what not.

Either way neither sisters are to blame they were just raised in very unfortunate situations I would wish no one would have to experience at such a young age.

[robitherat]

Thinking about the fact that most of Tims character arch is based around him actually dealing with the things from his past

Like a major part of tims character is his denial of the things that happened to him-- his repression of memories, chalking things up to hallucinations, suffering in silence, brushing off any concern from those around him ("Tim what's that?" "Just some medicine I need to take" "Are you sick, do you need to go home?" "No I'm fine.") The fact that he never mentioned his medical history or his time at the hospital to Jay until he was basically forced to.

And what was it that finally made him tell Jay about the hospital? The operator directly attacking him and making him relive scenes from his past. It wasn't until he was forced to realize what was at stake, forced to essentially confront the danger he was in by bottling up his past, that he willingly (at least somewhat) shared that information with someone. I do like to think that maybe Tim opened up to Brian in college, but as far as cannon evidence, we only really see Tim willingly talking to Jay about it. Brian knew, sure, but it's just as easy to assume he found that after the fact-- that he caught Tim in the lie, rather than Tim telling him outright.

And Tim really isn't a great liar, either. Like I know we talk about Jay being a little bit of an idiot (rightfully so) but Tim's main course of lying is. The most obvious deflection in the world. When Jay mentions the tape in his house, Tim's response is to immediately deflect ("I'm a little more worried about my house right now.") which would be a smaller thing if Tim wasn't intimately aware of how important it was to find and watch any tapes they possibly could. Tim's only method to coping with things that happen to him and the people around him is through denial, even in times when it would be infinitely more beneficial to acknowledge the issue at hand.

What's even more interesting to me is that Tim is seemingly the only character that makes any genuine progress in fighting against the operator. But that comes with the caveat that Tim is only able to do so when he actually confronts the operator, and by association, the issues of his past.

The only way he and Jay are able to make amends and move on is by Tim telling Jay about the hospital, which was only spurred on by Tim being forced to relive his trauma. Right after Tim tells Jay to stay out his life, he (by force of tta) has a relapse and ends up paired with Jay anyways. The only way he's able to get Jay and himself away from Alex's house in one piece is by literally physically standing up to the operator. In the fight against Alex, the whole time he's being ported around, he is monologuing about his past-- he's finally acknowledging the things that happened to him, that they weren't his fault, that they affect other people, and that violence isn't the answer to dealing with them-- that isolating yourself and denying the truth of what's happening isn't the answer.

And of course this is all tied back to the metaphor of mental illness: the fact that you cannot deny the things that have happened to you if you have any hope of moving on from them. you can't lash out or harm others because of your trauma if you have any hope of moving past it. The reason Jay, Brian, and ultimately Alex all died is because they were incapable of facing their issues head on; they all turned to anger, isolation, violence, and otherwise feeding into what the operator wanted, or alternatively, feeding into the misery spiral of their mental illness, rather than finding healthy coping mechanisms to heal from and move on from it.

God I need to write a full analysis essay about him OKAY I'm ending it here these aren't all my thoughts this doesn't make sense but I'm ending it here thank you for watching goodbye