#relating to my favorite character through a similar trauma is better than drawing myself dealing with it alone

[carnation-damnation]

Without you

[caskit2]

Gorillaz Analysis

Caskit’s not ready to throw all their cards on the table but the time has come!!! 

Okay then, I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to talk about here with Gorillaz cause DAMN!! 

I love gorillaz, 

I love the characters 

damon is a gift that we just dont deserve 

But how did I end up in the fandom pool? 

Well for one, I have heard of gorillaz music back in middleschool but at the time I was busy with Invader Zim and Inuyasha as well as jumping into this band wagon as well  (Full metal Alchemist) 

so by the time I turned to look at Gorillaz was when phase 3 was JUST wrapping up and making way for phase 4. which means I jumped into a fandom that had characters that I knew NOTHING ABOUT. Do you know what that means?

It means I also had no understanding or knowledge of why people shipped “this or that” in the fandom, but I gained some intel on the characters and the growing plot of the story, but other than that, I didnt understand why I was drawn to a particular “ship” in the fandom.  

*actual expression made, im not joking*

Once upon a time, caskit discovered 2doc and was not surprised that this was a ship. I have seen similar stuff that has a common theme that i was drawn to at the time. I was more interested in why fans ship them so I dived in head first into the boiling lava and came to a conclusion.,.....

I dont see them as able (capable?) of ever ending up in the way that most 2doc shippers would pick. The two are chaotic on levels of different tiers of “weird and gross” and I dont really have a reason as to why i was drawn to the ship, but It made me want to analyse what exactly a stable relationship is!

I basically walked around in that area of the fandom and didnt really form any “attachment” to it. I never really experienced a “healthy relationship”, lived in childhood and teen years were I went through life avoiding relationships. So I didnt have a good start, but I knew eventually that I would have to explain myself. 

I feel bad that I wouldnt be able to give a solid answer to what makes me want to sit down and analyse any scenario that has “present abuse undertones” but I know that in the past and how I grew up with what I was exposed to...That I would come to realize how unhealthy it is just for me. 

This post isnt particularly about 2doc itself, but its more about discussing how I handled MY reaction to something that I have seen over and over. In a way, I could see those abusive tones that were present.

Basically Caskit never experienced good healthy relationships and decided that it was a good idea to use gorillaz as a processing strategy....not a good idea in the end cause...OOOHHHHHHH 

It confused me more than before!!! 

I got friends that tag their stuff, and I dont really get so bothered with peoples own opinions, cause I was more worried about how I would come to understand everything. 

When I think about how fans are dividing and putting up a wall to keep “haters outa my yard”  it usually has to deal with shipping stuff, and character hating. And I guess I was confused about everyone’s perception of the characters.

Talking about the characters, I dont have a “least favorite to most” cause I have specific connections to them in different ways. 

I can find similarities to noodle for the expectations she had in a band at age 10 and growing up (plus we are both gays that dont like to publicly talk about relationships) 

I connect with Russel cause I lost a piece of myself  after a paranormal encounter and 3 near death experiences and suffer hallucinations. His protective demeanor to little noodle clicked with me. I see him as the Heart and soul, dedicated and warm friendly guy. ( you mean a decent human being right?)

I relate to 2d in a way that I share his enthusiasm, and mad bravery to live with the same guy who ran him over and caused 2 accidents that are permanent. 

I relate to murdoc in a weird way...  His childhood hits too close to home for me, as a CSA survivor of 2 incidents, pain addict and victim of abuse, draws similarities. But there were things that he has done that match things to my past like the abusive father, and dwelling on the darker aspect of a bittersweet reality. I was expressing physical violence to “show affection” and was never called out for it. I was not just a victim, I was also the abuser and since it was something that murdoc is faced with, is why I hated him. He is (for me) the thing I hate about myself. 

When I saw more and more fans hating on murdoc I wondered if people would ever think I was the same as him. Fans didnt like the way he treated 2d  and the rest of the band, And I agreed. Fans hated him for lying and causing drama and I agreed.  

His ignorance was a comedy slapstick (dressing in a nazi uniform cause he thought it “looked cool” despite russel telling him that its not a good idea) and was seen as the “crazy hooligan that has delusional dreams of fame”  and it bothered me that jamie used this to cover up allot of obvious issues that needed to be addressed. and the way that the fandom treated him made me think about how I would be accused of being like him. 

(thank goodness I didnt cause a car accident and have to sell my soul to satan for a shot at fame with a kickass band and didnt make uncomfortable sexual jokes or ignore others that tried to help me.) 

I can separate what justifies the hate on murdoc when it comes to abuse and causing shit to go down. becuase I did those things in the past, but it didnt take me more than a decade or more to realize that what I did was wrong! I didnt take forever to change for the better. so Im frustrated at him for taking so long to turn around and go “holly fuck im a bastard! I should probably fix that” 

Yeah NyOO ShiTT HunnayYY!! 

I dont hate him for being an idiot, I hate that he symbolizes all things wrong about me that never got closure! 

him admitting to being the cause of 2d’s social anxiety and eye damage as well as the abuse is easier said than done! but the fact that he is letting everything out of the “in-denial basket” is nice for me to see, cause right now Healing and progression in closure to issues of trauma is what is important to me. 

The endgame for my perspective on 2d and murdocs relationship is this: 

I dont want to ship them

I dont even see it as a thing regardless of character development and both guys working through their own shit themselves. 

I am not the best person to explain what a toxic or abusive relationship can be. 

Why? becuase I lived through it and I was both the victim and abuser to myself  and grew up without a good relationship (and I have a fear of positive affection) so I dont enjoy going through the same pattern as before where i shipped abuse in the past as a “dumb 13 year old weeboo” 

I dont view their relationship as romantic, or platonic, or healthy. 

I just want the boys to enjoy their own character growth individually. 

I would like to eventually see a friendship with them But I’ll be more excited if instead the whole band eventually gain a healthy relationship with everyone.  

Year 2018 marks the year I jumped in head first into gorillaz as a blind fruit bat 

(I call it the year caskit played with fire) for cosplaying ‘murdoc fuckn wrinkles’ at a convention around the time the fandom was yelling at him and jamming to 2d’s album. 

Caskit jumped into the shipping lava all for Behavioral analyzing and hopped over fences to see other fans perspectives of characters they liked and hated just to make sure Caskit could understand the illuminati that is Gorillaz. 

I made friends all over the fandom, and thanks to a few people, I gained more confidence to push my art skills and create some kickass art of Gorillaz. 

And yeah I yap yap about murdoc ( looks over @russelhusselhobbs im sorry you put up with my bullshit) but remember peeps. 

I like hearing about the others and have gotten more into 2d’s character as well as Jumping over the fence to go hang out with russel fans and listen to fangirling from friends and just trying to be a freakn fairy godmother and deliver some good representing art. 

And for those who aren’t aware, my past artwork is probably gonna float around so if its signed as Caskit or Caskit19 then its mine and if you see my old 2doc stuff.....,

for the trigger. 

But YEAHHHHHH!!! I wanted to throw all this on the table. and I dont know how to feel about that...(I swear my friend jokes with “need some feel good inc for Caskit” ) Kinda contemplating my choice between sticking my head into a hornets nest or jumping into a dark water trench.... the hornets nest sounds less likely to give me a seizure induced panic attack so ill go for that. ( I have a tolerance for inflicted pain so no you cant hurt me by using violence cause I dont have any consideration for myself and my safety)  

But yeah now I can get back to drawing fun stuff. (hopefuly caskit wont have to bore you guys with stupid shit ever again! xD) 

[janiedean]

I started following you thinking you were different from these crazy puritan sjw but goddman when it comes to character you don't like you act exactly like them. Basically character u like --> "poor child he had a difficult childhood :(( here's one hundred thousand meta to justify all his horrible actions "crazy psycho bitch burn her!! no meta no justification she's just horrible it's canon!!11" I smell hypocrisy. Quite disappointed

........................

anon are you okay?

no, are you okay?

first thing I never said anyone should burn or die or whatever, second thing, have you read the text? because if character A is an abuse victim and character B is their abuser I am not excusing anything, I’m explaining you that they’re different, especially when fandom likes to take at face value the fact that they’re similar when in the text it says otherwise.

also lmao if you go around tumblr there’s thousand words of meta about how everything horrible cersei does is to pin on robert or society or jaime or tyrion or tywin and not at least partially on her terrible personality so excuse me if I write my thousand words of meta about how the characters I like work?

also, have you seen me actually bashing cersei or anyone I don’t like? like, openly bashing? posting on the character tag? (because guess what all my posts are tagged anti in a way that makes sure they won’t end on the main tag or the mobile tag, how bad of me huh?) making shit up about how terrible they are? of course I’m not writing you a ten thousand word meta about a character I openly dislike or loathe because I’m not the right person to do it, but now if I point out their objective flaws that can be found in the damned text itself I’m a puritan?

but that said, since you’re talking about cersei:

I only talk about cersei in relation to jaime. period. and cersei is his abuser. period. it’s text. make peace with it.

I don’t post meta about cersei. I never once posted publicly on tumblr anything like OH GOD I HOPE SHE DIES BURNING.

I don’t like cersei. I never made a mystery of it. I also never talked shit about cersei for things that never happened. have you ever seen me going like OH GOD SHE’S BANGING PEOPLE LEFT AND RIGHT WHAT A SLUT? no. because I don’t think it’s a thing she should be bashed for. she should be criticized because she’s a horrible person. guess what, 99% of the smart people I know who like cersei like her because she’s a terrible person and enjoy terrible characters.

I don’t particularly like dany or margaery or lf, just thinking about the first other three that come into mind. do you ever see me even discussing either? no. because I don’t remember half of dany’s chapters and I know most fandom likes marg and blah blah blah and I know my opinion isn’t required and I don’t particularly care about it. how is that the same as what you’re implying?

I never called cersei a ‘crazy bitch psycho’. I said cersei is a narcissist who only loves people as extensions of herself, which excuse me but is fucking canon and it only takes reading the damned book to figure that shit out. some characters are terrible people. she’s a terrible person. period. and okay, justification? no meta?

fine enough.

cersei has, textually: a dominant personality to the point that her twin thinks he’s the same as she is because she tells him to while he does exactly the contrary and neither of them notices, she took the first step in most of the important milestones in her and jaime’s relationship, she was half of the reason he joined the KG ‘so they’d be together’ fully knowing he was losing his inheritance for it, meanwhile she was drawing herself and rhaegar on dragons and lied to him about the subject of said drawings (TEXT, go look for it, it’s in affc), then she was hoping to marry rhaegar while being with jaime at the same time and telling him he was the only one for her, pushed in a well her companion/friend who dared ask maggy if she’d marry jaime when she was older at the ripe age of twelve, twelve, and all along she was abusing tyrion to hell and back to the point where he was younger than ten and fantasizing about burning her and their father alive but not jaime, and guess what, since she has a goddamned vagina and she’s a woman, half of what she does is excused because SHE’S SUPPOSEDLY A FEMINIST ROLE MODEL.

but okay, if you want the ‘justification’: I absolutely and totally recognize that cersei was hindered by her position and her gender and that westerosi society was not the right place for her, I recognize that she was in an abusive marriage with an asshole of a husband that I don’t even like and that it made her even worse, I recognize that she thinks she loves her children (at most she loved one of them tbqh but never mind that), I can give her that she became a way worse person and her mental health got worse through her marriage, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t an abusive asshole before then or is tyrion making his trauma up nor that as much as being married to robert would have made her worse she was already a person With A Lot Of Issues before then. wow, it’s as if having issues doesn’t automatically excuse you from your bad actions, and I write thousands of meta about jaime because his bad actions are explained and put into context by the trauma he has gone through and are not a direct consequence of his personality traits while cersei’s are mostly the latter, but this entire damned fandom ignores it and thinks they’re the same person.

that’s the goddamned problem.

and excuse me but I don’t have to spend hours of my time writing meta about a character I don’t even like when the world is full of people excusing her bullshit at every damned turn or doing it properly and understanding her better than I might anyway. and when at least to others she’s interesting, to me she’s really damned not. and when I talk about her I stick to objective facts.

and yes, she’s horrible and it’s canon.

deal. with. it.

ramsay bolton is horrible and it’s canon. roose is horrible and it’s canon. tywin is horrible and it’s canon. littlefinger is horrible and it’s canon. wow, it’s as if some characters are antagonists or negative. also, cat is horrible to jon in canon and I could write thousands of words of meta about how I still think she’s an amazing conceived character and one of my favorites without at the same time diminishing the fact that she fucked up jon enough that he should do ten years of therapy when I also love jon as a character as well. I love cat. I also love jon. cat is horrible to jon even if she could admittedly have been way worse, but she was. it’s canon. I don’t need to tell myself she’s been a great mother and such a good influence on him or to find a way to excuse her actions (at most explain them) to make myself feel better. because it’s canon.

people denying that jaime was a good person to begin with are ignoring canon. and so I’m writing ten thousand words meta about it because I like this idiot and he speaks to me on various levels. it’s called being in fandom.

if you think it’s so hypocritical to point out that an antagonist IS DESCRIBED AS A NEGATIVE PERSON when SOMEONE WHO’S NOT IS NOT, fair enough.

but this was really out of this world.

now it’s hypocritical to point out objective character flaws. okay.