#or understand what trauma is at all

[monards]

sometimes i stare at a post and realize i have nobody to talk about this with and cry

[brainrotcharacters]

the easy grip on the knife. the leg over the seat. the hand over the other seat. the sassy "come get it" move. you know the bitch is smiling behind that mask even as he said the line.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

going through my old journals as part of therapy homework and i'm reading a section written in the emotional wreckage of a full-on breakdown when i get hit with this line:

There is never a satisfying answer to ‘Why didn’t they love me?’

like wow babe. good fucking point

[foxstens]

kevin day

watched a man be cut into pieces when he was 12 so he would understand what happens to those who defy the moriyamas

was raised in a cult, subjected to extreme labour and pressure and expectations from a young age, running on 16 hour days with no privacy and little to no autonomy

was raised in an environment where everything hinged on his ability to play. was deprived of food and rest if his performance wasn't satisfactory

was abused physically, emotionally, psychologically by his coaches, his godfather, his 'brother'. was forced to watch said brother inflict unimaginable torture on his friend for years

was forced to hide all of that due to also being a celebrity and growing up in the public eye

unexpectedly had to remove himself from that toxic but familiar environment, leaving his friend behind, in order to survive

had to learn how to function outside of that environment while adapting to a new team and using his non-dominant hand for everything in mere months

so yes i think he deserves some respect

[wistfullywaiting2]

The biggest misconception in the bsd fandom ever to me is people constantly portraying Atsushi as someone who trauma dumps excessively when he canonically barely talks about it at all.

The entire point is that Atsushi does not talk about his trauma he’s just constantly thinking about/reliving it. He can’t escape the memories of his past so he tries not to acknowledge them.

He only mentions it when asked, either directly or when someone asks him to explain himself.

Atsushi doesn’t even give a cohesive explanation for what he saw while under Dogra Magra, he just apologizes to Haruno and Naomi.

If Lucy hadn’t had her whole “you’ve never suffered the way I have” spiel then I doubt even the audience would’ve gotten to find out about his scars

If Akutagawa never asked him how it felt for the orphanage headmaster to die Atsushi would have never told him that he’s been hallucinating.

In the omake where Kyoka asks him why his hair is like that it’s clear he wouldn’t have told her that unless she had asked.

In 55 minutes Atsushi very briefly mentions sleeping on a dirty floor somewhere to Kunikida because he was trying to explain and justify his behavior.

And the thing is that there are scenes that implies that the other characters see Atsushi behaving strangely and are visibly confused because they do not understand what’s wrong with him.

Remember, we as an audience get to see things about characters that the main cast doesn’t. Just because we see into Atsushi’s mind doesn’t mean the other characters know what’s going on in there.

Also little footnote here that I think this is a reference to the moon over the mountain but I digress

[sysig]

Ah, childhood memories (Patreon)

[odetojupiter]

so, we know that abuse and victim responses to abuse are very central to aftg, but what i find interesting is how other characters respond to the victim’s reactions, especially when it comes to mourning their abuser. there’s something about kevin mourning riko, aaron mourning tilda, neil mourning mary, andrew mourning cass, thats so important to me because it really truly highlights how even when people are united through similar traumas, the differences in their situations makes it impossible to fully understand the relationship a person has to their abuser. neil, aaron, and andrew are united through the abuse, neglect, or - what the fuck is the word i’m thinking of? permit? condone? i mean, knowingly allowing it to happen and not intervening - stemming from a maternal figure. but neil can’t understand why andrew would hold on to cass for so long - he refused to let her go until aaron came into the picture. and andrew can’t understand why aaron would mourn for tilda, potentially viewing aaron’s grief as a betrayal of their promise. and they all ridicule kevin for his reactions to riko. of course, neil and andrew are also abused by riko, but they still can’t understand the complicated relationship between kevin and riko because, at the end of the day, they just weren’t there.

i mean this is primarily an observation but i really love how trauma and trauma response is depicted as nuanced, complex and overall just difficult to understand from an outsider perspective in the books. it reads as really real, and though it can be frustrating when a character doesn’t understand a different character’s response, you have to understand that their perception of said character’s response is warped by their own experience of abuse.

andrew bounced from home to home, never had stability, so obviously he held tight on to the first mother-figure that didn’t outright hurt him. his self-worth was probably low enough that he thought living with drake was a fine price to pay to keep cass.

neil only ever had his mother, and he’d willingly accept her harsh hands because he believed she was just keeping him safe from the very real dangers that were closing in on them.

aaron was dealing with an addiction, and so was his mother; he was equally dependent on her to avoid withdrawal as he was scared of her anger.

i don’t really have a point anymore but you get what i’m saying

[pepperpixel]

SAID HE LIKES CRAZY GIRLS,

BUT HE HATES WHEN I ACT CRAZY,

IT TAKES TWO TO TOXIC!

FINALLY!!! Finished these pics of jinx I’ve been working on!!!!! HOLY SHIT, these took so long…. But finally… they’re done… pls enjoy this art of my beautiful princess w a disorder. Featuring alternate colors for the big pic and also a closeup! Cuz I rlly like how both the lines and coloring on her face turned out… like the pink gradients w her eye… her deer in headlights expression,, like uve just startled a raccoon digging thru ur trashcan and r two seconds away from getting mauled.. m proud of it!

[charmac]

Opinions on Charlie woobification? Also, do you think the fandom woobifies Dennis (too much)?

A few people have sent me asks about my thoughts on Dennis being woobified in the fandom and I’ve failed to answer them (sorry). Not for lack of interest on the subject, it’s just hard to answer. I think, though, answering this Charlie question in the same ask might make it easier to explain my thoughts on this.

When we talk about the fandom we’re generally talking about the people here, a couple hundred people on Twitter, maybe some Instagram stans(?) and tend to ignore the million (1,000,000)+ people on the subReddit and the huge chunk of people on Facebook and casual Twitter who are constantly, continually pushing a narrative that these characters have no depth, and thus their characterisation is what we see on the surface and nothing more. I think the one time it’s probably important not to ignore those people as fans of the show is when it comes to woobification.

Because at a surface level, the people who are consuming this show as a comedy and making posts that exhibit their takes/opinions on these characters to the majority of people portray the characters very simply: Charlie is an idiot and the best member of the Gang, in every sense of the word, and Dennis is a mere representation of toxic masculinity to a psychopathic degree. And those opinions are the loud majority.

So any discussion in our minority section of the fandom that woobifies Charlie or Dennis operates within and on top of the general narrative of the public perception (“face value”) of the characters. Woobification of Charlie, then, almost always further infantilises the majority of his traits to contribute to the idea that he’s not a bad guy and doesn’t deserve the position he’s in in life, while woobification of Dennis mostly works to counteract the idea that he’s a cold-blooded psychopath.

In a way, I think you have to woobify Dennis to a degree in order to properly understand his character (and Glenn makes that clear). Do some people take it too far? When it gets into the realm of genuinely somehow believing he’s not a bad person, absolutely, but in over a decade of Sunnyblr posts, I think I’ve seen that conclusion once, maybe twice. I really don’t think any post that’s diving into how Dennis' actions reflect his insecurities and trauma is ever speaking ignorant of the rest of his character, and that normally seems clear to the majority of people because rarely, if ever, does a dive into Dennis woobification cause fans to understand the character worse than they understood him at face value.

Whereas, with Charlie, you constantly do see this. Posts and threads and fights between fans arguing up and down that Charlie is better than the rest of them: he’s the smartest, actually, he means to do good, he shouldn’t be lumped in with the rest of them as sexual predators... People in this fandom genuinely argue that you are a *better person* if you’re a Charlie stan, that Charlie ships are softer, more moral, than toxic Dennis ships. The result of Charlie woobification seems to often make people less media literate about the character (and the show as a whole if we’re being real) than they would be if they just watched at face value.

They’re all morally despicable characters.

TL;DR: Due to the face value perceptions of the characters, woobification is an almost necessary tool for better exploring and understanding Dennis under his surface, while it really only exacerbates an annoying surface-level understanding of Charlie

[noperopesaredope]

Me: Ooooo, I wonder what this "Mouthwashing" thing is that everyone's been obsessed with lately. I should check some of it out.

Me, 30 minutes later: I would kill myself for you, Anya.

[witchinatree]

i've been relistening to the magnus archives (by that i mean i just listen to it constantly. more than music at this point i think.) and i really really really really love jon & daisy's dynamic and every time i thnk about it i just get hit with this new "oh my god...."

like they're the two i think of when i see the "there's only one person who's ever truly understood me, unfortunately i fucking hate the guy" (i think i'm quoting it wrong but ykwim)

one of my favorite moments in the show is when they're following daisy after the change and jon is like "i never forgave daisy for what she did to me, but she never asked me to either. she knew she had no right"

also it's like they both died twice (kind of) the first time during the unknowing after trying to protect the others (daisy giving into the hunt to kill breekon or hope i forget & jon trying to stop tim from blowing himself/everyone up) and the second time when they gave up the last of their humanity for the people they love the most & those people had to kill them

they also doomed themselves for each other if you think about it. like jon went into the buried (technically he didn't know about the marks but he still knew he might not come back) and daisy gave into the hunt for the final time to protect him from trevor & julia. they don't even really know each other but at the same time they know each other like the way they know themselves??????

like WHAT those are the same person but also they aren't but they are???? sorry i'm actually incoherent but i really love their dynamic and i just keep putting together more pieces the more i'm thinking about it/listening to the show.

i think there's more i wanted to say but i forgot

[thymejot]

Do you ever thing about the comparing of scars scene in Agatha All Along?

How, in all Agathas 300+ years of existing, it is probably the first time she has just chilled out with her peers?

All other times, except maybe with her first coven, when engaging with witches, it's with the sole purpose of manipulating them into stealing their power.

Yet here this sad sack of a witch is, snort laughing with her ex as she shows how she got stabbed with a knitting needle.

It's such a tiny moment, yet it is also probably the first time she has felt any kind of kinship with someone outside of Rio or Nicky.

Do you think about her uncertainty as the other witches laugh at her story? How she is waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Did she have this bond with some of the Witches in her first coven before her mother would come in and stomp all over it?

An instinctual moment where she waits for Evanora to come in and punish her for being so frivolous, being so damned.

This was probably the first time she experienced community without punishment.

There was probably the tiniest spark of hope that maybe she could finally belong.

Then hours later, in swoops her mother and takes it all away from her again.

Because I do. I think about it a lot, and it breaks my heart.

[trans-axolotl]

one thing that has been frustrating lately is that outside of the disability specific organizing spaces i'm in, i've noticed that so many people assume that because i'm a wheelchair user, i don't have relevant experience/skills for high risk and escalated protests. what's particularly frustrating lately is that some of these organizing spaces i'm in, i actually have more relevant experience than a lot of my comrades--i started going to antifascist protests when i was 13 and have been involved in a lot of protest movements over the past 9 years. and have learned a lot of shit from a lot of mentors. some of my comrades just got involved this year, which is great and i have a lot of respect for them. and at the same time i genuinely do have a lot of relevant knowledge about tactics, practical experience, etc etc. i'm always learning + continue to grow my skills and don't want to get complacent ever but like. some people were talking about how they wanted to learn how to do eye flushes for tear gas and i was like "okay yeah we can practice that, i can teach everyone if we stay a little later tonight" and someone said "thanks for offering but we should probably learn from someone who's had experience doing this on the ground." which was so fucking patronizing because i literally do have that skill set...i have been tear gassed many many times, have done eye flushes for people many many times, literally have a LOT OF practice doing that in a high stress and chaotic environment when the cops are brutalizing you. and no one else in this group had this experience! ignoring my experience made no sense and actively endangered the group! it made me want to scream like. how fucking ableist to assume that and also to insist that disabled people aren't involved in high risk protests even though we have already been out here involved for years and years! i'm going to scream

[hecksupremechips]

Thinking of vlr Akane is so conflicting cuz on one hand I’m so upset that she doesn’t ever get a moment to just rest and enjoy being alive again I’m upset that she just gets deeper and deeper into this role she’s built for herself and she loses her humanity and will never ever be that girl who died in the incinerator. But on the other hand, I need her to get so, so much worse I need her to be so obsessed with perfection she has this unique ability to change the course of history and she will burn everything and everyone to the ground in the blink of an eye if it means she can "reset" and get a perfect timeline and I desperately need her to never be satisfied with anything because really, is there anything that’s worth all the damage she’s caused?

[mikkeneko]

This is just my own interpretation, and I very much do not say that other reads are wrong or that people shouldn't write romantic/sexual qijiu fic, which I've read plenty of and is great, but

I think it's also valid to read Yue Qingyuan and Shen Jiu's relationship as being neither romantic nor sexual

they are still 100% each other's most precious person but in an entirely platonic way. This read to me mostly comes from the fact that their bond -- which was so strong that the splintering of it kicked off a sequence of events that led to the downfall of their sect and arguably to the end of the world -- formed in their childhood on the streets, before either of them had gone through puberty. And, critically, although they met again when they became teenagers and then adults, their relationship never advanced in any kind of positive direction after that.

I don't think Shen Qingqiu was Yue Qingyuan's white moonlight, or the one he got away. I think he was the one he couldn't save, and the inability to save him hollowed Yue Qingyuan out. It was a wound that was inflicted early enough that it took up half his world, and only grew as he did. I think you don't have to be romantically or sexually interested in someone to love them enough to be willing to die for them.

I think you can get a valid read of the situation that Yue Qi and Shen Jiu's relationship was never romantic, let alone sexual.

[acearohippo]

I love fandoms, especially witnessing what fans take away from source material and how fans interpret it based on their experiences. Not to mention the stark difference of interaction between new fans, casual fans, experienced fans, and long-term fans.

I say this because the SVSSS fandom has continuously fascinated me in insisting in discussions that there are parallels between Shen Jiu and Luo Binghe (tell don't show), but in their fanworks, I just see parallels between Luo Binghe and Yue Qingyuan (show don't tell).

And it's not even (fully) a case where they're blending character personalities because they want what the other dynamic has, it's just how the characters are based on canon in two different timelines.

All of this to say, perhaps original draft PIDW (NOT original!PIDW nor pre!SY PIDW which are completely different) was supposed to revolve around the dynamic between SJ and YQY vs SJ and LBH. Perhaps YQY was to be the last hour mastermind, the true foil to LBH.

And fandom is just circling this idea without realising it because, once again, the unreliable narrator that is SY has already convinced this fandom that any version of SJ has to be a/the villain, regardless if it's through his own actions or baseless rumours.

Warning, run-on sentence ahead.

I don't know, mans, but it's gotta mean something that LBH and YQY have such similar life beats of being orphaned and having a tough life but remaining kind/compassionate because they had someone to live for until they didn't which left them empty until they found (or refound in YQY's case) one (1) man to obsess over in an uncomfortably intrusive way with no regards for his feelings and rejections, eventually reaching a position as the most powerful being in existence with a huge caveat that their sword is 83% of that power and is slowly killing them which did nothing to soften said man of their obsession's into showing them kindness leading to the ultimate confrontation between the two in which only one could survive and keep their obsession, not that it mattered because neither of them got to experience his feelings reciprocated, except in another timeline where the same things are happening until their obsession suddenly stops rejecting their (still intrusive) advances even if he is acting a bit silly, but hey take advantage while you can and take advantage they did because now they have that reciprocated feeling (except one still "won" as he gets to keep him for himself) and be thankful that all it took was, in their perspective, a near death fever that drastically changed his personality and most likely left him crippled in some other way, preventing their obsession from not NOT needing them anymore, all-in-all fulfilling their desire to be relied upon again, hooray! 😋😁✌🏽

In all seriousness, at the end of the day people are going to draw connections between characters that fit whatever narrative they understood from the story. SVSSS fandom just seems to be trying to convince others of one narrative while believing on a deeper level of another narrative. It's amusing and makes following the fandom fun.