#so much sadder

[double--blind]

(SPOILERS) Ashley, self-esteem, and starvation

So, I adore Ashley. She's this intensely toxic, vicious, cruel, manipulative girl, and her psychology gives me hella brainworms. Andrew's not the only one whose head I wanna crack open and root around lol. She's thrown away the world just to keep her brother by her side, and she'll continue to do worse and worse for the same reason. She's pretty awful! I've been thinking about why, though. How did things get so bad? How did her soul get so dark?

We don't know everything (I'm waiting for those new eps patiently aND CLAWING AT THE WALLS AND FROTHING AT THE MOUTH but whatevs y'know whatevs I'm normal. I'm fine), yet what information we have been given is bumping around my brain like a DVD screensaver on hyperdrive

It's clear from the start that the roots of Ashley's issues lie in her horrible, neglectful upbringing, but it's hinted that even those outside of her family felt the same abt her. I'm lowkey even betting we'll learn later on that she was ostracized by her peers somehow. However, what's most disconcerting, I believe, is how little she was when the results of this alienation are first made apparent to us (bc kids aren't dumb; they notice this stuff oftentimes instinctively, impossibly young, before they even know what it means to be hated), and how devastating the consequences were.

(There's something decidedly childish abt her dream sequence in the "questionable" route—filled with crayon scribbles and rabbit plushies, the metaphors simplistic yet profound—which really hammers in how these sentiments are things that have made a home in her since childhood. Formative subconscious truths.)

Growing up unloved and noticeably unwanted by virtually everyone around her likely left her with a gaping hole in her heart that she'd spend the rest of her life trying to fill. She'd make friends, but she'd always worry that they'd leave her, that they'd betray her, nothing tangible or weighted enough in their connection to trust in its persistence. Why should she expect otherwise? Not even being bound by familial ties ensures affection if her parents are any indication.

Every lesson she'd ever learned had always taught her this: you are easy to abandon. You cannot love and be loved by virtue of your own worth.

You have to rip their affection from their clenched hands if you want it so bad.

This understanding carries with it an undercurrent of degradation, instilling within Ashley a constant, biting inferiority complex which will never fail to be a source of insecurity. She will always be put last. She was difficult to raise, so her parents gave up on raising her. She was difficult to get along with, so her friends gave up on getting along with her.

It's an odd cycle. She's difficult bc she needs to be to get attention, but bc she's difficult, she can't keep it. Not without having whatever fondness she's managed to cultivate within someone fray at the seams, volatile and prone to collapse, bleeding toxicity.

Hence, her relationship w/Andrew.

By being the only reliable constant in her life, caring for her and keeping her company, Andrew essentially became her only source of happiness, and she's since learned not to bother with anyone else. Still, it's dangerous to keep all your eggs in one basket; since he is all she has, she must protect her place in his life with even greater ferocity, which becomes a torturous ordeal when coupled with her damaged self-esteem.

It's apparent in her quarrels with Andrew that she needs constant reassurance that she is wanted in some capacity or perceived in some positive light (getting pouty when Andrew says he's "stuck with her", needing to hear that she's pretty, needing him to "choose her", wanting him to say he loves her back, etc. etc.), yet her insecurity remains, bc unlike her, he's got options. She doesn't think he needs her like she needs him. He's got a gf, their parents love him, her friends love him. Why would he settle for her? What if someone better comes along? Someone she can't scare away?

Wouldn't he just leave her like everyone else?

Even before getting locked in the coffin of their apartment, starvation's been a constant theme in Ashley's life. She's constantly aching for love, and Andrew's the only one who can feed her. When you're forced to fight for a bite to eat or suffer every moment you hunger, you become ravenous—covetous—when faced with food; you don't want the hunger to return, so you lock down the source of your sustenance, wary of its retreat. Ashley's in a permanent state of intense insecurity, always anxious that the love that gives her life will leave her.

Andrew knows Ashley better than anyone else in the world, and it's obvs to everyone and him how desperate Ashley is for him, but I don’t think Andrew has truly, consciously processed the depth of that desperation. It's there buried in his head somewhere no doubt, but rn, he doesn't operate w/the direct awareness that he is everything. He is brother, mother, friend, and soulmate. He is life and love, air and water, everything that is good in the world—everything that there is to justify existence.

It's heartbreaking, in a way, that it's so difficult for Andrew to convince her of his loyalty. This goes further than his tendency to hide his true feelings, bc when push comes to shove, he's at her beck and call. Objectively, he's hers. She doesn't see that bc all she sees is all the ways she can lose him.

So, she gets bratty. She gets pushy, possessive, territorial. Manipulative. Gets under his skin, guilts him to exhaustion, bc she can't see him staying any other way, bc he doesn't get it, bc it works. He bends to her will, for her sake. For now. It's always "for now", bc he'll start slipping away again, and then it'll get worse. She does worse.

Becomes worse.

[stompandhollar]

you asked to keep the requests coming, so here you go

a jmart wedding

i took some creative liberties with this ask, bc it kicked my brain into gear to think of them finding a drawer of clunky old (probably haunted) antique jewelry in the guest room at Salesa’s house. they joke around, oh they’re wedding rings, wonder who they belonged to, killer ghost brides, blah blah blah, and then before they know it they’re wearing two and they fall asleep.

Well, Martin does. Jon stays awake a bit longer. just a little bit longer.

[sameboot]

Simon petrikov coping FAIL compilation

[itseghost]

only you.

my turn with soul touch jayvik :)

[art-soboro]

wearing thin

[cubbihue]

“He knows Timmy will come around eventually. It's only a matter of waiting for his clock to run out. And HP is very patient.” Hey uh.. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN HIS CLOCK TO RUN OUT is he waiting for Timmy to become a full fairy (Pixie?) and when that happens Timmy forgets about being a human entirely?

Sometimes Timmy wonders why he has grudges against certain fairies. Some of them, he can understand- like his dislike of Dr. Rip Studwell. But other ones, like with Cupid, it's a bit of a blur.

He must've been a very very vindictive 10 year old! Ah, well! Timmy's learned that he has to pick and choose his own battles wisely.

And uh. Fighting with the man who decides his paycheck and vacation days is not a battle worth choosing. Talk about a hostile work environment!!

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[ryemiffie]

I don't think a lot of people realise that Jason would not have just forgiven Bruce, moved on, and been happy to rejoin the family if Batman had killed the Joker during the whole Red Hood monologue thing.

Because then the problem wouldn't be "Why didn't you avenge me?" It would become "Why did I have to ask you to?" There would have still been so many problems they would've had to work through, and I don't think Jason's anger and resentment would've just melted away if Bruce had killed Joker then. It wouldn't have mattered, Jason wanted to be avenged by the loving dad he thought he had, he didn't want to have to beg to feel cared about.

It wasn't just about the action of killing Joker, it's what killing Joker would have meant. If Batman had killed Joker after Jason's death, it would have meant something, it would have meant "you took my son from me and that's a pain I'll die with, so it's a pain you'll die with too." It would have meant he couldn't handle the idea of any other fathers losing their son to such a man, any other parent, any other friend, any other colleague, any other person suffering such a fate. But he didn't do it then. If he killed Joker after Jason had to yell that Joker's death is what he wanted, it wouldn't have met the same thing. The meaning would become, "You're dying today to satiate the anger of the Red Hood, you're death is a bargaining chip, you're death is just to comfort a dead man."

Do I believe Jason would have a moment of relief if Batman had killed Joker in that moment? Yes, but I don't think the relief would be because he believes that Bruce did this because he loves him, and I don't think the relief would last. Not long enough.

After Batman kills Joker in that moment, a smile would spread across Jason's face, a satisfaction, but then that satisfaction would leave him and so would his smile, it would all melt away and he'd be once again stuck with his anger, but now he wouldn't know what to do to fix it, he'd be scared, terrified that nothing could fix him, that nothing could fix the anger and pain of a dead boy, even revenge, even a father's supposed love. He'd cry, the tears would come slow at first, he doesn't know why they're there at first, he doesn't even feel them in the beginning, he thinks perhaps they are happy tears. But then Bruce says his name, not Batman, Bruce, "Jason?" He says, and he sounds scared too, like he doesn't know what to do, not just with Jason but with himself.

Jason realises what he's made his father do, and now he realises it doesn't matter, he feels no different, he doesn't feel loved and cared for, he still feels like a corpse, when Joker's heart stopped Jason's didn't resume. And Jason didn't know why. He had read so many fairytales, when he was young he'd sit in the library for hours devouring books, and when he was in the league he read so much to Damian. All those fairytales, they all said the same thing, to break the curse, to wake the forgotten love, right the wrong, put things how they were meant to be. Why didn't that work? The wrong had been righted, the Joker was dead by the Batman's hand at his son's order, why didn't he feel better than? Because this wasn't a fairytale, this was gotham, this was the curse of loving a man like Batman, he'll never love you back, and if he does? It'll always be too late.

Jason cries, it's ugly, it's painful, it's neverending. And Batman hugs him, he clings to his son's body, holds him as close as possible in the hope it'll save the both of them from the darkness that spills from their souls, but Bruce knows it won't, and Jason now does too. Nothing could fix Jason, nothing could comfort him, nothing could stop the violent anger that burned within him, and now he had condemned his father to the same fate. As he sobbed he yelled, "Why didn't you kill him all those years ago?! Why did I have to claw my way out of my own grave to get you to care?! Why did I have to beg you to end the pain?!" He was mad, so mad, and it didn't go away when the Joker died, it just went deeper, rooted itself further into him, tore its way through his soul till the thing was rotten in pieces with grief. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, this should have fixed things, this should have made things better, but it didn't, it wasn't fair. Quietly, no longer yelling, he whispers into his father's impenetrable suit of armour, "Why does it still hurt?" There's no answer, he doesn't expect one.

Soon he will break out of Bruce's hold, he will run and never look back, he will hide and he will cry for days, he will pray Bruce doesn't come looking, because if he has to see his father now, after what's happened, he may just die again.

[rosesvineyard]

javier and giulia, two siblings resting. circa 1881.

[phil-isms]

we were put, two little boys from reading and rawtenstall, and then we met via the internet and created this thing called dan and phil

[werothepine]

You're like the little mermaid right now... But you won't dissappear on me like sea foam will you?

[sakurabraches]

thinking abt the scene in act ii of the musical where glinda sees elphie after what's probably been years, and how much emotion there is in the "elphie? oh thank oz you're alive" and how her first reaction is to tackle hug her

and then she sees the wizard and desperately tries to smooth things over but before she can even really process what's happening or really react elphie and fiyero run off together and leave her alone

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

why did he do that to me? part 2 of this :3

[umbrace-rambles]

I've seen a lot of posts wondering about the extent Trust can change a person and this is a very fascinating topic in itself but I've been wondering about the inconsistencies we have seen so far, specifically. I'm sure there's a reason for them.

Xiao Yueqing did say OG Nice leaned more and more towards OCD due to his "perfect" hero persona. We have seen him get dirty without a care in the world with Wreck, now this could either mean this was not a 24/7 issue and he was able to be more himself than Nice sometimes, but I personally interpreted it as him before this started to become a genuine issue, and it progressed to become worse and worse. Those flashbacks are from years ago.

So we have been shown Trust can change a person both physically and psychologically, but my hang up is..... why didn't something like this happen to Xiao Yueqing?

People shipped her with Nice so hard that it changed how her powers worked and chained her to him... but it never actually changed her at all despite her fans being CONVINCED they were a couple. We have seen how she is when she's not playing Moon and she couldn't be more different, Trust doesn't seem to have affected her like it did Nice. Shouldn't it have changed her feelings as well? Her own person? She didn't even like the guy, at all, they weren't even friends, polar opposite.

Does this mean Nice was "weaker" and easier to manipulate and change by Trust? Does the effect Trust have on you depend on how strong your personality or sense of self is? Is it dependent on how LONG you've been under the influence of Trust? Nice seems to have been a hero for way longer than Moon has. Does it depend on if your fans believe the exact same things about you or if there's variation? Does it depend on how many fans you have? I'm sure we will find out when we know more about the other heroes but I'm so so curious

[halfkasster]

-took a pottery class

-wanted a backflow incense stand

-fixated on In Stars And Time

so i made this guy and im very proud of him look at my boy ❤❤❤❤

[leupagus]

Ted Lasso, the character, is one of the only representations of 'sometimes getting better with your mental health issues means that you are less visibly happy, and that is okay, because you are not required to be happy in order to be loved' out there and I am really discouraged that so much of the audience is angry at that.

[peteytheparrot]

A Series of Unfortunate Events liberated me as a child in the way that it shows how utterly incompetent adults can be about children, like none of them care to understand how these children are feeling because they don’t see them as real living human beings, because they’re just kids! They don’t know any better!