#the THINGS it is provoking in me

[kvothes]

people keep asking for updates on my life and i keep being like well richard siken published a new poem

[paintedcrows]

Whenever Bill sees KingOfNJ's fics through Stan's eyes he just thinks they have the same taste in fanfiction (disgusting. unthinkable) continued

[yayll]

~ a little something about you and Dazai working together... or at least trying to ~

"Hold still! God, you really need to be more careful, Dazai, I worr-"

He blinks, and tilts his head, his voice soft yet firm as you both sit on the agency's couch.

"Would you mind looking at me real quick?"

You glance up from disinfecting his wound, and hum.

"Mm, why?"

He sighs, and when he speaks his voice comes out dramatic yet tantalizing, the way he always makes it sound when he knows he's about to say something silly. Something you'll hopefully scold him for! Yum...

"Oh, no reason... Just wanted a little kiss before I inevitably die in your loving embrace~"

You roll your eyes and groan, it makes his stomach do flips. There it is, that adorable shade of pink he loves so much! It matches the one you had on in bed this morning, but that's too naughty to think about now... Dazai hears the way your voice is significantly less strict, and he knows he has you. When does he not?

"Not now, Dazai-"

He interrupts, pouting as he reaches over and twists a lock of your hair in between his slender fingers, twirling it mindlessly while you mend his wound. He gives you a melting expression as his eyes droop enough for you to have no choice but to notice his despair as he whines.

"Mmm, why do you always only call me Dazai when we're at work?"

You sigh as you gently finish dressing his wounds, the fresh bandage mingling with his older ones... He makes a mental note to have you change those later too.

Anything to keep your hands all over him. Desiring him. Always in sight, always on the mind.

"Because we're at work... we're professionals, remember?"

That silly little comment makes him scoff.

"Hmph. Well, everyone knows..."

"Know what?"

"That you and I kiss in the supply closet sometim-"

You fling yourself against his chest and clamp his mouth shut, cheeks burning redder than a tomato. He licks the inside of your palm, causing you to immediately yank your hand away with a small squeak. You can't hold back the way your lips curl into an embarrassed smile as you hiss, and it makes him almost froth at the mouth... Trying to relearn decency is hard when he's this close to you.

"Professionals, Dazai!"

"... We should kiss" He blurts out, face smug.

"No"

"But it huuurtssss!" He's desperate now, resorting to the lowest of the lows so you'll accomodate him against all wishes, not like he has any shame left. He dramatically points at his wrapped up wrist, and slumps back onto the couch as he deflates into deadweight.

Your face softens and you look down, sighing in resignation that your boyfriend might just be a total baby FREAK. His pupils turn into hearts when you speak to him in the way he wants you to.

"Where does it hurt?"

"Who are you referring to?"

"You..?"

He smirks devilishly, and shrugs, feigning ignorance as he looks off to the side, arms crossed. You slowly start to get it, and crack a smirk. You exhale, shaking your head as you give him what he covets for.

"... Where does it hurt, Osamu?"

There it is, the magic word. By the time you're done asking that he's already crawled ontop of you, cornering you on the small loveseat and caging you in between his slender frame. Dazai takes your hand in his, and intertwines your fingers together as he nuzzles your cheek with his nose. His voice is soft, gentle, and talks you through it, just how he did this morning.

"Mmm, I'm not sure anymore... Let's find out together"

Your breath hitches, and you become bashful under him. He looks at you with narrowed eyes, knowing what it does to you, but more importantly what it does to his sick little mind. Leave it to Dazai to turn playful banter into something that will surely leave the two of you a mess... Hopefully you a little more than him. You whisper, a little breathless.

"Oh, now you're just baiting me, huh..."

"Well if I'm bait, then you're biting."

He whispers back, as if sucking the very life force out of you with his eye contact alone. This is how he wins, how he secures heaven for himself every single day, selfishly. He's not hiding anything in his expressions. He wants you for him, and no one else.

You really never stood a chance.

[arugulaeater]

actually I'm kind of curious about this because it was a huge debate among my peers in my community

Clarifications under the cut:

The poster is in a public space where it is typical for everyday people to post things. It is not someone's private property or possession. Think piece of paper taped to a telephone pole, not sign in a storefront or in someone's yard.

The poster is not protected by law; you are very unlikely to face legal consequences for vandalizing it. Caveat: some peers have argued that it risks being socially consequential because an organization or demographic that you are a part of may be judged as intolerant/oppressive/disruptive/otherwise unpleasant if people witness your actions, and thus advocated against vandalism for fear of damaging your public image.

The poster is not an expensive or personal piece of artwork; it is a mass produced print on letter paper.

You are vehemently opposed to the message displayed on the poster, but it is an opinion that people are free to have in your country.

The 4th option refers to things like intentionally putting your own poster over top of the bad poster or otherwise making the bad poster harder to view; some people argued that targeting the poster for removal is out of line, but posting your own messages is an innocent action that you are well within your right to do (in this context, posters regularly eclipse each other as new ones are posted over top of outdated ones due to limited space)

The poster is part of a campaign; it's not unique. There are many postings of it across the community.

This is all assuming that the offending poster is not old and would typically not be considered fair game for pruning for quite some time, and that it is being specifically targeted for removal because of its message (rather than petty vandalism or because it's obstructive or damaged). E.g., if a poster is advertising an event happening on April 20th, it's typical to prune it after that date but not before.

Of course the situation that prompted the real life debate did involve a specific offending message, but I'm not going to specify what it was for now because I think it'll skew the results as people will just end up voting based on whether they like or dislike that message, which isn't the point of this. For this poll we are assuming that it IS a message that you are very opposed to; you can substitute in your own opinion that you have strong feelings about.

Please reblog for sample size!

[wispforever]

hidan and kakuzu share thoughts on religion

[ofswordsandpens]

"the Gabe and Sally dynamic in the show is abusive" and "the way they've portrayed Gabe in the show is distinctly different from his book counterpart and fans can criticize that" are two discussions that can coexist

[strangelighttraveler]

[arthursfuckinghat]

There needs to be a scientific study done on how Rockstar Games' Arthur Morgan is able to provoke the most earth shattering emotions I didn't even know I had in me

[volitioncheck]

does near every single post-canon DE fic out there need to be tagged ‘Sober Harry Du Bois’? i’m getting so tired of it.

do i expect every single piece of fan content to have to fully delve into the often-depressing always-complex topic of addiction? not really. sometimes you just want to write/read a silly fluffy romance one-shot, whatever. i get it. but i think my issue is specifically with the fact that for nearly every sillyfluffy au out there, there almost must be a ‘sober harry du bois’ tag. and it does feel very slapped-on more often than not.

i think to me it is an unconscious statement that nothing *good* can ever happen to harry du bois until he is completely and permanently sober. before solving the next big case, he has to be sober. before quitting the force, he has to be sober. before falling in love with kim, he has to be sober. before accomplishing anything, starting any sort of recovery, making any life improvement, he must first be sober.

sobriety as a goal, as a journey, and honestly as a concept in of itself is not as cut and dry as so many people think it is. and i think it would serve a lot of people well if they did some introspection on the implications of how nearly every single post-canon fic that isn’t dealing directly with harry’s addiction have him as completely sober instead.

if the plot of the fic isn’t going to touch directly on harry’s substance use (and again, i’m not demanding that every single fic should), why does that mean that sober!harry must be the default?

i think i am just tired of reading a casefic, a smutty one-shot, a fantasy au, whatever, where it almost seems that before getting on with the plot, the author feels obligated to first assure us that the harry we’re reading about is a Sober Harry. it’s established with a couple lines in the exposition, probably about his improved appearance, a tag up top, and then never brought up again; a checkmarked box. like the societal image of An Addict has completely prevented people from being able to imagine a person just, continuing to live life, while still struggling with addiction.

life happens, with all of its backslides and achievements, mundanity and changes, to people with drug addictions just as much as people who don’t. is a post-canon harry who isn’t sober not worth writing about?

i think so. i think the game we all played thinks so too. in fact i think that sentiment is woven into the game’s very core. i just wish i saw that reflected in our fan content more.

[doverstar]

actually I love Tentoo and he is the Doctor and it was the only ending for Rose that worked and it is a huge gift to be able to have the man she loves grow old with her, they were always heading for that, y'all be quiet. I 100% understand the angst but it's okay, they're okay, good ending-

[antsyandpantsy]

Berry…………… ERZA!

GAH!!!

[feroluce]

Lucid Dreamer (1/2)

part 2

Gepard notices that it's been. Quiet lately. Like weirdly quiet. TOO quiet. He hasn't seen Sampo Koski in almost a week, which is about the longest he's ever been absent. And he is NOT worried. He's not! So what if they've been getting along more lately! So what if Gepard sometimes looks for him in his favorite hiding places! So what if he's been dreaming about blue hair and green eyes! It's nothing!!

But they're….strange, these dreams. Gepard doesn't usually remember what he's dreamt. It's out of his mind seconds within waking up. But these stick with him, they won't leave him be, they feel different somehow.

He dreams of Sampo bringing food to the frontlines and eating breakfast in his tent with him. Sampo always sneaks him extras. He dreams of chasing Sampo through the alleyways, Sampo sometimes letting himself be caught, Gepard sometimes catching him, and trying to ignore how it feels more like a game now more than anything else. He even dreams that Sampo tags along with him on one of his few civilian days. Sampo runs errands with him, prattles about inane bullshit while Gepard picks out groceries for the week, drags Gepard into some bakery he's never been to but he thinks Serval mentioned once.

And sometimes, it feels so close to reality, that Gepard half expects to see Sampo, shamelessly swaggering into the frontlines with all the guards' breakfast like his wanted poster wasn't only recently taken off the walls of Belobog. He's disappointed when it's always someone else instead. He tells himself his disappointment is ridiculous and if Sampo wants to go prowl around the Snow Plains or wherever he is, then fine. It's not any of his business.

…But it IS his job to investigate any unusual criminal activity relating to the frontlines. And the frontlines are Sampo's usual haunting grounds, and this is unusual activity, and Sampo IS technically a criminal, so it is absolutely part of his duty to look into this - is what Gepard tells himself the entire tram ride down into the Underground.

Natasha tells him he's gone, and Gepard has to steel himself. He knew Sampo made enemies wherever he went, there are a lot of people who would love his head on a platter, but he didn't think-

Natasha corrects him that she means literally gone. As in off-planet. Sampo always leaves her a note before he goes anywhere, so she knows not to expect any supply runs from him. He should be back in exactly two weeks. Thank the Preservation.

Gepard goes back home. He waits.

The uneasiness doesn't leave him.

"Where did you go?" Sampo stops dead in the middle of some story about Seele, and how you'd think someone with as blunt a mouth as her wouldn't have so much trouble asking a woman out, even if that woman IS the Supreme Guardian, and stares at him. He nearly fumbles his cigarette.

"Ahaha, what do you mean, I'm right here?" Sampo smiles at him the same way he always does. Gepard has no idea why he asked. It just popped out. He can never tell when Sampo is lying, anyway.

"I don't know. I feel like I haven't seen you in a long time." Gepard idly mouths at his own cigarette. He almost never smokes, but he wants to ration their stocks of Blizzard Immunity, and it helps with the cold. It's seemed colder lately, for some reason.

Gepard flicks his lighter once, twice, sighs at the third time because a metal prosthetic and thick gloves make the damn things so difficult. Sampo reaches over and wordlessly kisses the end of his cigarette to Gepard's, lighting it. "Thank you."

Nothing happens for almost a full 30 seconds. Something churns behind Gepard's ribcage. Because Sampo never leaves a "thank you" hanging. This is the part where he gives his spiel about how helpful and kind he is and Gepard either brings up how long his rap sheet was before Bronya helped clear his name, or just stares deadpan because seeing Sampo squirm is weirdly satisfying.

"…I'll be back in one more week."

Gepard jolts awake in his cot, mouth dry and eyes bleary.

The hell.

The next dream he has, Sampo looks tired. Sometimes he seems normal. Sometimes he says strange things, like how he wishes he'd gone to some restaurant in Belobog. Ate his favorite food more recently. Brought something with him. Gepard asks why he can't do that now. Where would he bring something? Sampo only shrugs. His rebuttals have less energy.

Gepard doesn't know if he wants to dream more, or less.

He ticks down the days on his calendar. Natasha hasn't told him any different. She promised she would if she got any kind of message. Sampo returns tomorrow, from whatever vacation or seedy business dealings he's been off having. He is not excited about it. He is not looking forward to it. He's not!!

Gepard falls asleep late that night, unable to settle. He dreams again.

He's alone. There are tons of people everywhere, the frontlines are always crowded. But he's alone. They all pass right by him as though he were a ghost. Gepard starts to walk before he realizes his feet are even moving.

He checks the trashcans in the dead end alley. He checks the supply crates that someone always stacks too high because they don't feel like finding more space for them. He pauses to check the soldiers that march past him, watching their footprints in the snow.

He finally finds Sampo on the rooftop along the northernmost wall, the one that looks out over the plains, towards Everwinter Hill, towards where the Stellaron had once been kept. With a full moon and an entire land of white snow, Gepard can almost see clear out to the horizon.

"Found you." Sampo stiffens, and Gepard is almost prepared for him to sprint off the roof. He doesn't. But he doesn't relax either. Gepard sits down next to him and stares out at the wastelands.

"…I fucked up." It wasn't what Gepard had been expecting. Sampo never 'fucks up,' Sampo just gets into incidents that are entirely, supposedly, not his fault and that he just happens to always be within the vicinity of.

"What did you do now?" It must be really bad if Sampo is coming to the Silvermanes for protection.

Instead, Sampo ignores his question completely. "See out over there? Right on the other side of that mountain. There's a safe house that way. It's hidden under a lot of snow and dead trees, but it's there. And in that safe house is a box full of letters. I need you to deliver those letters for me."

Gepard's brow furrows. It's a weird favor to ask. Sampo would never tell anyone where his hidden safehouses were. It defeated the whole purpose of a hidden safe house.

Something is wrong, something is really really wrong.

Gepard turns back to look at him again and startles, all of his questions dying in his throat, because the entire left side of Sampo's head is suddenly matted down, dark and sticky, his skin is dyed red red red-

"In three more months, there's gonna be something big happening." Gepard grabs Sampo's hand and it feels slick and warm against his palm. "I won't be here. So I need you to do my end of things for me." Gepard tries to keep hold, but something is fading, something is slowing, the sun is coming up but the colors are all wrong, everything feels like encroaching fog, Sampo's hand slides right through his. "I was gonna come back with my mask to finish setting the stage, but…" Gepard makes a frantic grab for Sampo's wrist, the air twists, he comes back empty-handed. "They have you. And you're the Iron Wall of Belobog. So it'll be ok."

Gepard finally manages to find his grip, snatches the front of Sampo's dark wet jacket and yanks him forward to hold onto him, and this close up, he can see it better, his colors are bleaching out, leaking outside the lines as if Sampo will become part of the background, as if he's fading into the strange fog that's been closing in on them. His fingers are already starting to feel empty again.

"Wake up."

Gepard jolts awake, uncurls his hands from where they're fisted in the blanket, scrubs the dampness off his face. Breathes. Breathes. Breathes. Today is supposed to be the day.

He throws on his civilian clothes, and he goes down to the shipyard the IPC had built. He finds a spot where he can see every person that returns to Belobog, and he waits.

And he waits and he waits and he waits.

No one he recognizes appears.

[manderleyfire]

– What's keeping us apart ain't even real, your daddy, his religion, it's got nothing to do with us. – It's not just his, it's mine too. I've got the same spirit in me, why don't you see that?

Alice Englert and Walton Goggins in Them That Follow (2019), dir. Dan Madison Savage & Brittany Poulton

[jacksprostate]

Treatise on why No, the doctor just giving the narrator of Fight Club (full name) his requested sleep medication or sending him to therapy would not have Fixed Him

Firstly, saying giving him the insomnia meds would’ve fixed him ignores the reason he has insomnia in the first place. He is so deeply upset by his place in society that he literally cannot sleep. Drugging him to sleep would not change that. That, of course, is the easy, quick response.

But with regard to therapy? The biggest flaw is that it ignores a central tenet of the book. Part of what tortures the narrator and drives him to invent Tyler is that his feelings about this collective, systemic issue are constantly reduced to a Just Him thing. His seatmates ask what his company is. He’s the only one upset at the office. He gets weird looks if he says the truth of what he does. People will do anything in their power to pretend he is the issue, as an individual, because it is far scarier to consider the full implications of the systemic issues implied by what he is saying. Everyone treats it as if the issue is him, so he goes insane. He does anything to get someone to say, holy shit, that’s fucked up, what you’re a part of is wrong. In an attempt to feel any sort of vague sympathy and catharsis, he goes to support groups to pretend to be dying, because then at least people don’t habitually blame him for his anguish. 

Saying therapy would fix him ignores that his problems are not individual. They are collective. It’s the reason the entire story resonates with people! Something deeply, unignorably wrong with society, where people would rather blame you for bringing it up than try and address it, because it feels impossible. I don’t blame people for this, really, because it IS scary. It’s terrifying to sit and feel like you’ve realized there’s something deeply, deeply wrong, but if you say something, people will get mad at you since it’s so baked into everything around you. Or, even if they agree, it’s easier to deal with the dissonance by pretending it’s individual.

And it’s not like that’s not the purpose therapy and medications largely serve, anyway. Getting into dangerous territory for this website, but ultimately, the reason the narrator was seeking medication was because it’s a bandaid. A very numbing bandaid. For these very large, dissonance causing problems, therapy does very little. Medications do what they always have, and distract you with numbness or side effects. It’s a false solution. He is seeking an individualized false solution because he has been browbeaten with the idea that this is an issue with him alone, when it's plainly clear it's not. 

Don't get me wrong. Obviously he has something wrong with him. But it's a product of his situation. It is a fictional exaggeration of a very real occurrence of mental illness provoked by deep unconscionable dissonance and anguish.  There is a clear correlation between what happens and his mental state and his job and how isolated he is. 

The thing is, even if he were chemically numbed, I do think he would’ve lost it regardless. Many people on meds find they don’t fix things. For reasons I’ll get into, but in this case because even if numbed or distracted, once you’ve learned about deep, far reaching corruption in society, it’s very hard to forget. Especially if, in his case, you literally serve as the acting hand of this particular variety. He’s crawling up the walls. 

So why do people say this?  Well, it's funny I guess. Maybe the first time or whatever. But also, often, they believe it, to a degree. Maybe they've just been told how effective therapy and meds are for mental illness, they believe wholeheartedly in The Disease Model of Mental Illness, maybe they themselves have engaged with either and have considered it successful. Maybe they or someone they know has been 'saved' by such treatments. 

But in all honesty.... What therapy can help with is mentality, it's how you approach problems. For issues on a smaller scale, not meaning they are easier to deal with my any degree, but ones that are not raw and direct from deep awareness of corruption; these are things that can be worked through if you get lucky and get an actually good therapist who helps build up your resiliency. But when your issue is concrete, something large and inescapable? It's useless. At best it can help you develop coping mechanisms, but there is a limit for that. There is a point where that fails. To develop the ability to handle something like this requires intense development of a comfort with ambiguity and dissonance and being isolated and a firm positioning of your purpose and values and and belief in wonder and all the other shit I ramble about. The things that the narrator lacks, which lead him to taking an ineffectual death knell anarchist self-destruction path. Therapy, where the narrator is, full of the knowledge of braces melted to seats and all the people that have to allow this to happen? It fails. 

And meds — meds are a fucking scam. We know the working mechanism of basically none of them, the serotonin receptor model was made up and paid its way into prominence. We have very little evidence they're any better than placebo, and they come with genuinely horrific side effects. Maybe you got lucky. I did, on some meds. On others? I don't remember 2018. The pharmaceutical industry is also known for rampant medical ghostwriting, and for creating 'off-label' uses for drugs that have gained too many protests in their original use, then creating a cult of use to then have 'grassroots' campaigns for it to be made a label use (ie, legitimize their ghostwritten articles with guided anecdotes). 

The DSM itself is basically a marketing segregation plot. It's an attempt to legitimize the disease model by isolating subgroups of symptoms to propose individualized treatments for subgroups that are not necessarily all that separate. But if the groups exist, you can prescribe more and different medications, no? Not to mention, if you use the disease model, you can propose that these diseases are permanent, or permanent until treated, considered more and more severe to offset and justify the horrific side effects of the medications. Do you know why male birth control doesn't really exist? Same reason. They can justify all the horrible side effects for women, because the other option is pregnancy. For men, it's nothing. 

And they're not bothering to invent new drugs without side effects. When they invent new drugs it's just because the last one got too bad of a name, or they can enter a new market. Modern drugs don't work any better than gen1 drugs. They still have horrific side effects. At best, the industry will shit out studies saying the old one was flawed (truth) so they can say this new gen will be better (lie). They're doing it with ssris right now. 

Fundamentally, the single proposed benefit of any of these drugs is that they numb you. To whatever is torturing you. It's harder to be depressed if you can't feel it, or if you just can't muster the same outrage. Of course, there is people who find that numbness to be helpful, or worth it. But often, it's stasis. For the people who have problems that can be worked on, it serves as a stopgap to not actually work on said problems. The natural outcome of the disease model is stagnation for those whose need is to develop skills and resiliency. It keeps them medicalized and dependent on the idea that they're diseased and incapable. Profitable. Stuck in the womb. 

I’ve been there. It’s easier, to wallow, and resist growth because it’s difficult and painful and unfair and cruel and you can think of five billion reasons to justify your languishing. But don’t listen to anyone who tells you you’re just permanently damaged, no matter how nicely they word it, no identity or novel pathologization, no matter how many benefits they promise, especially if they swear up and down some lovely expensive medications with little solid backing and plentiful off-label usage and side effects that’ll kill you. Some days it feels like they want us all stuck in pods, agoraphobic and addicted to the ads they feed us to isolate the markets for the drugs they’ve trained us to beg them to pump us with. Polarization making it as easy as flashing blue light for go, red like for stop, or vice versa. I worry about the kids, for fucks sake. That’s a bit dark and intense, and I apologize. But I want you (generic) to understand, there is a profit motive. Behind everything. And they do not mean well. They do not care about your mental health or your rights or your personhood or your growth. They care about how they can profit off of you.

For those struggling with immovable, society problems, like the narrator grappling with how his job fits into and is accepted by society while his rejection and horror in the face of it does not, it can work about as well as any other drug addiction. Your mileage may vary. From what I've seen, recovering from being on prozac for a long time can be worse than alcohol. They put kids on this shit. They keep campaigning for more. Off label, again. A pharmaceutical company’s favorite thing to do has to be to spread rumors of someone who knows someone who said an off label use of this drug helps with this little understood condition. Or, in the case of mental illness, questionably defined condition. And like, damn, I know I'm posting on the 'medicalization is my identity' website so no one will like all this and has probably stopped reading by now, but yall should be exposed to at least one person who doubts this stuff. Doesn't just trust it. Because I mean, that's the thing right?

It's so big. What would it mean, for this all to be true? Yeah, everyone says pharmaceutical companies are evil and predatory and ghostwriting, but to think about what that really entails. Coming back to the book, everyone knows the car lobby is huge and puts dangerous vehicles through that kill people. What does it mean if the car companies all hire people to calculate the cost of a recall and the cost of lawsuits? No one wants to think about the scale that means for people allowing it or the systems that have to be geared towards money, not safety like they say. Hell, even Chuck misses the beat and has the narrator threaten his boss with the Department of Transportation. And shit, man, if every company is doing this, you think Transportation doesn't know? That they give a fuck? You're better off mailing all the evidence to the news outlets and hoping they only character assassinate you a little bit as they release the news in a way that says it's all the fault of little workers like you, not the whole system. Something something, David McBride, any whistleblower you feel like, etc. 

So I don't blame you, if your reaction is "but but but, that can't be right, people wouldn't do it, they wouldn't allow it" or just an overwhelming feeling of dread that pushes you to deny all of this and avoid thinking about it. Just know, that's in the book. That's all the seatmates on the flights. That's all his fellow officemates. It's easier to pretend, I know.

But think about, how the response fits in with the themes of the book. The story, as a movie too. What drives the narrator’s mental breakdown? How would you handle being in his position? How would you handle being his seatmate? It’s easy to say you’d listen. But have you? Have you had any soul wrenching betrayals of how you thought society worked? How about a betrayal by the thing that promised to be the fix of the first? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t follow that gut instinct, saying follow what everyone says, that person must just be crazy, evil, rude, cruel, whatever it is that means you can set what they said aside?

For a lot of people, they can do that, I guess. Set it aside. Reaching that aforementioned state of managing to cope with the dissonance and ambiguity and despair is very hard. The narrator made the Big Realization, but he couldn’t cope. He self-destructed. Even when people don’t make the big realization consciously, they’re already self-destructing. It’s hard to escape it when it feels easier than continuing anyway. When it feels like the only option,

Would therapy fix the narrator of Fight Club? Would meds fix the narrator of Fight Club? No. He knows too much. All meds will do, by the time he’s in the psych ward, is spiritually neuter him. A silly phrase, but really. Take the wind out of his sails. 

Is he fixed if he doesn’t try to blow up town? If he just shuts up and settles in and stops costing money? If he still can’t cope with the things he’s unearthed? Do you see how this is a commentary in a commentary in a commentary?

Fight Club is an absolutely fascinating story because of this. The fact that it addresses the fallout of knowing. The isolation. The hopelessness. The spiral that results from a lack of hope. This is, I think, what resonates most with people, even if not consciously. Going insane because you’ve discovered something you wish you could unknow. It’s a classic horror story. Should our society be lovecraftian evil? I don’t think so. 

Do I think changing it will be easy? No. Lord knows a lot exists to push people who make these sorts of Realizations towards feelings of individuality and individualized solutions and denial and other distractions and coping methods. And to prevent people who make One realization from expanding on it and considering further ramifications. Fight Club itself gets into this; the isolation of men being a strict part of the role society shapes for their sex leaves them very vulnerable to death fetishes, in a sense, and generally towards self destructive violence. It helps funnel them away from substantial change and towards ineffectual change. Many things, misogyny, racism, serve to keep people isolated from one another, individualized, angry, and impossible to work with. Market segregation; god knows even appealing on those fronts has become such a classic ploy that companies do it now, the US military frames its plundering that way, etc. 

I’ve wandered a bit but ultimately, my point is this: Fight Club is a love letter to the horrors of critical thinking, and the importance of not falling into the trap of self destruction and hopelessness in the face of it. The latter is why Tyler was an anarchoterrorist instead of anything useful. The latter is why it was a death cult. It’s important to work through the horrors of critical thinking so you can do it, and stand on the other side ready to believe in each other. It’s worth it.

[harmonysanreads]

Hey bbg, I'm sick af and my brain is all over but I can't remember if I asked this - what mbti do you think Sunday is?

If I have asked - Ana is a clown 🤡

Agsdghdjd it's no problem! I refrained from giving a concise answer last time due to the shortage of information (and I didn't want to jump to any conclusions) so I've really been wanting to revisit that discussion.

I think, all matters considered, Sunday is an Infj. As for the enneagram, 1w9, or even 9w1. I will be using layman's terms for the basic reasoning because going by cognitive functions will make this post too long. For anyone unaware though, the four letters and their counterparts that make up the mbti model stand for cognitive functions rather than their denotations.

A man who wished to construct a utopia free of discrimination, disorder and the rule of ‘survival of the fittest’ — that is where we begin. ‘Idealist’ is a word you'll often see being used to describe an Infj and they do have certain values and beliefs that shape their views, often as a result of their natural empathy — which makes said beliefs altruistic more often than not. If the weight of their ideals becomes heavy enough or if the situation becomes so that it's best they step up, they definitely have the potential to act on their visions.

The last act of Penacony illustrated this quality of Sunday. We were shown important fragments of his experiences that shaped who he became, why he still went through with it and how he was more or less pushed towards doing it. Though, Sunday was indirectly influenced by Gopher Wood, which is something to consider but that's not a discussion for today. He's people-oriented and ‘selfless’, distanced from himself as a result.

That doesn't mean he's clueless about himself. He does reflect on his past, it's either that he doesn't know how to act on those reflections or he lacks the courage to (or both). But because of this distance from himself, he makes a miscalculation in understanding the bigger picture (even though he thought he was thinking for the greater good) which ultimately makes his actions questionable. This proximity towards the external world yet detachment from the inner self makes the ‘reserved image’ of the Infj and is also a field of criticism.

Sunday also thinks about the collective rather than the individual. “Wouldn't it be so much better if every single form of life could function according to this vision I have of the world in my head where everything works out and no one remains burdened, no war and bloodshed happens?” He wants a future where everyone is happy even though he's aware that it's impossible.

The law of natural-selection births too much conflict and chaos, if it was rather run under a philosophy or structure that will ensure equality, an Order where no one would feel helpless — where he wouldn't feel so helpless — wouldn't that... technically solve the core issue? That sort of thought process is very common among Infjs, or at least in the beginning of it all.

What I've personally always found interesting is that Sunday is in a position of leadership, which would naturally force him to show more ‘personality’ than an Infj who is not in such a position. What makes it more fun though is because we can compare him to another Infj character within the game who also happens to be a leader : Jing Yuan. And when we do it, we'll see some very intriguing differences. Of course, these differences could be due to the way the two arcs were written but I still find the concept amusing.

[consumed-by-fandom]

Is it just me or does ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ fit Oswald really well?

Like CMON i could do a whole analysis of the lyrics explaining my reasoning it fits sooo well with his revenge arc against Ed, as well as his general themes of betrayal and being ridiculously difficult to kill

Its perfect for nygmobblepot angst imo DO YOU SEE MY VISION