#this is probably a lot more impactful to me because of the years of abuse my family put me through

[sometransgal]

Doing those music recs was a lot of fun honestly! I love listening to music and sharing it with others and it's nice to actually be asked about it and for it to be wanted.

[unknought]

In 2007 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development started reporting homelessness rates:

As you can see in this chart (from Statista) there was a fairly steady decrease in the number of homeless people from then until 2016. It flattened out for a couple years in 2017 and 2018, and then rose in 2019 and 2020. No data was collected in 2021 (due to COVID) and the increase from 2020 to 2022 was negligible, so one might hope based on the data from this chart that the upward trend was flipping around, and that by now by now it might be on its way back down, but this does not appear to be the case.

For 2023 the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported a homelessness count of 653,104. This is a dramatic increase which blows previous annual changes out of the water. It's a 12.1% increase relative to 2022, an 18.7% increase relative to the low in 2016, and the highest absolute number of homeless people since data started being collected in 2007.

So this is one way, at least, in which standard economic metrics being up has not translated to people doing well.

An objection one can make here is that even this new high is only about 0.2% of the national population, and while things may have gotten worse for the people in the very worst of economic straits, this doesn't say much about what things are like for the rest of us.

I agree with this up to a point. (Probably not the implied argument about what we should care about but let's not get into that for now.) It's probably true that homelessness rates don't shed a lot of light on how the median American is doing. But I think they are relevant to the well-being of a lot more than 0.2% of the population.

Even though only a small proportion of Americans are homeless at any given time, there a lot more for whom the threat of homelessness looms very large in their financial considerations, not irrationally. More people who are homeless probably means more people who can just barely make rent as long as they skip a few meals, more people who stay with an abuser because they wouldn't have anywhere else to stay, more people who can't quit their job to find a better one because they couldn't afford to miss a month's rent, more people who can't move out of a mold-infested apartment, more people who are just struggling with anxiety about whether they're going to be able to make rent every month. It also almost certainly means more people couch-surfing and more people who were homeless for part of the year that happened not to include late January, neither of which would be counted in the official statistics.

How much of an impact does this end up meaning, on how many people? I'm pretty unsure, but here's a suggestive statistic from the Federal Reserve:

> Challenges paying rent increased in 2023. The median monthly rent payment was $1,100 in 2023, up 10 percent from 2022. In addition, 19 percent of renters reported being behind on their rent at some point in the past year, up 2 percentage points from 2022.

It seems at least very plausible to me that claims about how great the US economy is doing merit a substantial asterisk.

[bloop-bl00p]

In defense of Octavia

TW: Lots of Trauma Dumping, Mention of abuse

She’s been wronged way too many times in this fandom for some reason. Look at her vibing, how can you hate her?

I’m a fan of Helluva Boss, mainly because of its potential but the quality dropped dead in the second season. We’re gonna talk about a character I’ve seen other fans misinterpreting in favor of the so-great Prince Stolass.

I want to talk about her mainly because I do what I want and because after studying her character I just realized that she’s just like me. Especially regarding her relationship with her father, I see myself in my younger years.

All of that to say…

She has all the right to feel abandoned.

Octavia obliviously has a stronger bond with her father, it shows in her behavior and little background details

When she wants to draw her family, she draws her and Stolas, we mostly see her being happy with him which leads me to think that she’s emotionally neglected by Stella. To her, Octavia is just an ‘egg’ that fell off her and she doesn't care about the impact killing Stolas could have on her daughter.

Despite being emotionally absent, Stella has a much more physical presence than Stolas. Most of the time Stolas is alone in his castle which leads me to think that Octavia is somewhere else with Stella. They did mention the two went on a weekend somewhere. This leads us to this question…

How can Octavia feel more close to her father?

Here’s the thing, I see a lot of my family dynamic here. My mom doesn’t pay attention to me at all, she doesn't want me to bother her and she makes it clear. My dad, however, who’s absent like 90% of the time, always tried to spare time with me. He explained to me that he was working and why he was doing all of this (I was like barely ten) but it never prevented him from trying to play with me, sharing his hobbies, going on a walk, and else.

He was there emotionally and, as a kid who was bullied, had no friends at all, and a mother who didn't give a damn, I cherished this relationship.

I believe the exact same thing happened with Octavia, we never see her with friends or even outside the castle, she’s isolated. Stolas has Prince duties, we’ve seen him carry them in the shows, hence why he’s mostly absent leaving her with her mother. But, at least when she was a kid, he tried to do stuff bringing her to Loo-Loo Land or being the one to comfort her. That is why she clings to her father, he’s the only one who actually shows her love and she’s terrified of losing that.

Regarding her mother, Stella obliviously doesn't care about her so the feeling is reciprocated. From a narrative standpoint, Stella is an unpredictable force of nature getting angry for pretty much anything that doesn't go her way. So Octativa learned to not cross her mother's path.

I know this expression, this is the “Oh fuck… they’re at it again?” she’s used to her mother's constant screaming, she's used to her parents fighting.

She did say they were a time when a parent didn't hate each other, which to me refers to the time when Stolas tanked Stella’s abuse. But, that doesn’t mean that Stella wasn't abusing him in front of a younger Octavia, she’s erratic and they did imply that she can get physical in her toxic behavior. Since Stella was passive, it was probably mostly harmful comments.

Putting personal things here, my mom was also very abusive to my older sibling. Since I was extremely young I learned not to ‘be a burden’ to avoid being abused as well, which includes things like not talking to her unless she does it first. Whether Octavia is aware of the physical abuse or not, she must know enough to know that it’s a bad idea to annoy Stella.

This is the only picture where we see her seemingly having a good relationship with Stolas, which to me feels like she’s faking it considering all we know about the family.

She has a pretty shitty household but her relationship with her father make it bearable until Stolas did a 180°

He randomly started to prioritize Blitz and don’t spill me the bullshit of ‘he’s trying’ he stopped trying long ago.

Let’s analyze this episode by episode:

In Loo Loo Land, Stolas seemingly tries to rebuild a visibly strained relationship with his daughter by bringing her to a park she liked when she was a kid. To this, she immediately responds with an “I’m not 5 anymore.” and an “I rather kill myself.” There’s no room for miscommunication, she doesn't want to go there, and she won’t enjoy it as much as she did back then. Still, he decides to go there, showing that he doesn't listen, and, he brings the one the thing that is currently ruining his already horrible marriage because of his own actions. Blitzø.

He’s trying to spend time with his daughter after a long time (this is mentioned in the episode) and he decides to bring in that one guy he’s hooking up with to deliberately make sexual remarks about him in front of her.

She’s uncomfortable the whole time, not just because she allegedly doesn’t like listening to her father's comments but because she doesn't like the park. She said it, yet Stolas doesn't acknowledge it, he doesn't realize the faces she makes which are to me pretty communicative of her annoyance and discomfort.

This is not even subtle body language, yet he only notices it when she runs off. The worst part is that he still finds a way to think about Blitzø when his daughter leaves.

He looked upset that Blitzø didn't follow him! Did he expect that guy to pursue him constantly? He was in the middle of an argument with his daughter, I personally would have stepped away to give them space to talk and reconcile. But no, apparently Blitzø should be at his beck and call all the time.

But you know what, after all of this. He still apologized. That absolutely does not negate everything he did during the day but, at the end of it, he finally listened to her and even brought her to a place she actually wanted to be. Which is good, he acknowledged her discomfort and did something she liked.

Until Seeing Star.

Look I know Stolas was busy with Stella but he clearly doesn't care about her and her stuff.

Don’t tell me he couldn’t pinpoint Stella’s location with magic and teleport all of her belongings to her. Their discussion was barely about the furniture, he could have said that they were gonna be delivered and hung up the second he saw Octavia. Arguing with Stella is pointless, he’s the number one guy that should know that! Why does he continue to insult her, he’s just fuelling the fire!

Moving out her belongings would have been 10 times faster if he just hung up the phone, then he could have had a more mindful talk with Octavia without the constant bickering of his ex-wife.

But he didn't for some reason, fair enough, I guess. The writers do whatever they want. Anyway, Octavia got angry and ran to go see the stars on her own.

So, Stolas’ castle is in Pride but my point still stands, Octavia had the time to run from home and make the way all from her father's place to the city, find the specific building Blitzø held his organization in and Stolas didn't notice a thing.

You cannot tell me Stella managed to get his attention for that long AND you cannot tell me that his castle is close to the shitty disaffected building and the populace. His daughter ran off and he did not notice a thing.

Not only that but he has the nerve of blaming Blitzø for not watching the book. Like, dude! You should have watched your daughter instead!

Then he spills out more bullshit.

I don’t know Stolas, how could you possibly find her when you were shown to have countless abilities to do so?

Like bubbles projecting the image and locations of people.

Or that on time when you possessed corpses and one woman just to go full eldritch monstrosity just for one that one guy you’re cheating your wife with. And don’t whine about “They don’t love each other.” it’s still affecting his family, mainly his daughter so it’s still bad.

Of course, you do all of that without your grimoire without any problem, brushing it off with a…

I guess he forgot his ‘ways’ when it came to Octavia. But honestly, Loona literally found her easily just by looking at her Instagram account, couldn't he just call her or something? The girl had her phone the whole time and he didn't just think of calling her.

Me when I forget that I have teleportation power when I am in an enclosed space with nobody is looking.

You’re certainly not worrying right now. Via literally told him to his face that she was scared and he kept flirting with him even though he once again caused her to run away because of his neglect.

He’s not trying his best, THIS IS NOT TRYING!

No Loona, his daughter communicated very clearly issues related to their relationship, rather than reassuring her and being there for her as much as it’s realistically possible (he still has duties to carry), he gets in an avoidable petty fight with his ex and keeps an unhealthy dynamics with an imp he's been obsessing over. He doesn't focus, his priorities aren’t straight, and now Octavia feels abandoned.

I did mention that I had a good relationship with my father back then, but it stopped abruptly. His focus changed and he went out with friends after work and gradually stopped spending time with me. Until we never spent time together again, (to give you an idea the only moment where I could see him was in the morning for breakfast) now that can sound silly but I was a child, with no friends and a neglectful mom, losing the only good thing I had in life broke me. I knew his schedule, I knew he was spending time with work buddies and that just stung my self-esteem even more leaving me feeling like a burden when I was just a kid who wanted to feel love.

This is why I don’t like the “He’s trying.” I know what a trying struggling parent looks like and I know what happens when they stop. If you keep trying to do something and you’re constantly failing, either your technique isn’t the right one or you’re not and you’re convincing yourself you are.

And then there are people that’ll tell me that “He lived through the abuse of Stella for years for her.”

If you read all of this then I don’t feel like I need to explain how Octavia was at least partially exposed to Stella's toxic behavior and was affected by it.

For those who don’t know how it feels to live with an erratic mood-swinging person, it’s pure constant stress. You have to think constantly before you talk or move because you know that if you fuck up you’re gonna pay the price. And if you still eventually mess up you can never know with these types of people! You can’t defend yourself because the punishment will be far worse. You are ALWAYS in the wrong.

So he lived through the abuse of Stella just so his daughter could get neglected and abused in a less physical way?

The difference between my parents and Octavia is that they love each other. Stolas doesn't give a damn about Stella, he did say he was nice at first because he empathized with her they were in this shitty situation together, and fine, it's reasonable. But she never changed! Stella stayed the same! Why didn’t he leave her when he stopped carrying about her?! There’s no trauma bounding, Stella isn’t guilt-tripping or manipulating him, they got the child he could have divorced her easily without consequences! If anything, she’s the losing part of this divorce she’s lower in the hierarchy! “Andreaphul will get angry.” HE’S A MARQUIS! Hierarchically speaking Stolas is far more important and he mopes the floor with his peacock ass!

Am I supposed to be empathetic with that one dude who willingly let his daughter grow up in a hyper-toxic environment with an emotionally neglectful and unpredictable wife?! Am I supposed to believe he cares when he kept sleeping in his house in his bed with the same guy his daughter clearly is worried he’s going to leave her with?! Really?!

Don’t ever tell me that this is trying.

[aryaqua-reh2o]

What is going on with Stolas??

Something is off, it has been clear since The Full Moon and I have a theory about it.

There are a few moments in TFM but mostly in Apology Tour that rub me off the wrong way, as if Stolas himself is going subtly out of canon in his behaviour. Considering that Helluva Boss is an animated show and there is nothing not intentional in an animated show, I bet my two cents that the main reason for this vibe resides in this frame

Stolas ran out of his happy pills (the equivalent of antidepressant I assume) in the beginning of The Full Moon and for what we know he might still be off his medication by the time Apology Tour happens a few days (?) later. Back then I thought that missing a medication once wouldn’t be so impactful, but after reading a little about how antidepressant works I now believe that the disastrous ending of The Full Moon was at least in part caused by that. Stolas had a vision of how the night should have gone and once Blitzø doesn’t behave the way Stolas hoped, he just shuts down completely, failing to notice that Blitzø was, indeed, desperately trying to fight to stay with him. In a very wrong way, but Blitzø at this point still has no idea of the years of yelling and abuse Stolas had to endure, so he couldn’t know his anger would have triggered the other.

Another concerning sign is Stolas covering up all the portraits leaving only Octavia visible. Where is she by the way? The palace seems completely empty if not for Pringles the butler that we see for a second in the beginning. The palace is empty and dark.

The signs that something is off with Stolas become even more obvious in Apology Tour. Stolas doesn’t really miss the fact that Blitzø is somehow desperately trying to spend time with him and make up for what happened in TFM, in fact he teases him [Oh yes, very boring (relationships), what are you doing here then?] but he is not in the right mindspace to accept it or to listen to him and read between the lines. In Just Look My Way Stolas clearly sees how Blitzø is hiding to protect himself from the world that doesn’t comprehend him, but in Apology Tour that awareness is completely gone and all is left is resentment. Then Stolas snaps at Blitzø calling him out for not bothering to come and save him from Striker, but when we think about the end of Western Energy we see that Stolas is not angry or disappointed about Blitzø not coming to his rescue, he is only sad because he realises that his feelings for the imp are probably one-sided.

I haven’t seen anyone pointing this out but I noticed something sticking out like a sore thumb. Stolas is a prince and he was born and raised in luxury, so I can’t really place this behaviour that happens twice.

He arrives at the party and he grabs an abandoned red cup, empties it and drinks from it. This was his first drink for the night, or at least he seems very much sober there, but he deliberately uses a dirty cup to pour himself a drink. Later he straight up steals a drink from a succubus that was passing by, ok he is drunk, but still… it feels so off.

At this point Stolas is completely intoxicated and the conversation with Blitzø turns into a double monologue. It still tells a lot seeing how the two of them interact and protect each other and are utterly comfortable being together (do they even realise? I don’t think so), but still they end up with Blitzø being direct and honest for the first time while Stolas does three things: He doesn’t listen to what Blitzø is saying, he answers back but it’s all very generic and he keeps forgetting Blitzø is there at all.

Blitzø: Stolas, you are better off without me. Kay? You deserve so much… I don’t even know why you would want to be with me.

Stolas: You wanna know what I want? I want to know what it’s like to not be alone. I want to be someone’s someone. […]

Maybe at this point Stolas is too hurt to address Blitzø directly, it seems like he just gave up on him already, he decided Blitzø doesn’t want or love him so he keeps talking about a generic someone. Then he rants about how he needs for this someone to hold him and look at him and… he forgets again that Blitzø is right there. -You! Why are you here? I don’t want you here, go home please! Let me not feel so sad!

And then the Better than Blitzo Guy arrives and… I really don’t want to go down that rabbit hole because it hurts a lot. But here I am so I’ll go down there shortly. While I am perfectly ok (I’m truly not) with Stolas exploring new relationships and finally having fun and feel seen and wanted, I can still see how hooking up at a party while you are going through the worst breakup of your life is as maladaptive as a coping mechanism as it is to drink themselves to oblivion. Regardless of the Better than Blitzo Guy’s intentions with Stolas, it’s still a self-destructive behaviour. And again, Stolas is having fun dancing and making out with the Better Than Blitzo Guy and forgets Blitzø was even there.

That hurts man.

So this is it. This is the rant. I am so worried for my birdie babe Stolas!

[originalwinnercheesecake]

Wish list for CBS ghosts season 4

Make Patience a recurring antagonist for at least 2-3 episodes before that story gets resolved and she gets regulated to a background character.

Patience character to be 50% good religious farm girl, 50% crazy witch. She also needs to have a wicked(ly cool) ghost power

More of Isaac loving dinosaurs

More solo development for Isaac

More of Isaac and Hetty's awesome friendship

No Nigel for a while. I do not like him. He did a lot of things in his and Isaac's relationship that are textbook abusive partner behavior.

I think it is about time for Jay's restaurant to start up, and I would like that to actually become pretty successful/profitable. Mostly because I would like Sam and Jay to have a bit more disposable income to do things around the manor, and I know the B&B is unlikely to become super busy next season (unless the show is ending , which I really do not want).

The difference in treatment between the above ground ghosts and basement ghosts to be addressed. I know after season 3 that they aren't going to move them all up stairs. But it would be nice if Sam and Jay could like furbish the basement , and then more Basement ghosts than just Nancy got invited to come upstairs for games or discussion.

Just to be clear I still want Nancy to keep making her frequent visits up stairs and hang out with the man 8. I just also would not mind seeing Stuart or another nameless basement ghost standing or walking by in the background on the occasion.

Explore Pete's power more. He does not need to hop on a plane and go across the country or anything, but let him keep going out into town and having adventures. Also let him keep going on dates with other random ghosts outside of the house.

I know that Pete&Alberta will probably happen at some point in season 4. The thing is though while that ship was cute in season 1, the way the ship was handled in season 2 soured it like milk to me. Both characters need a lot of development, and separate explorations of what they want out of a relationship, before I can ship them again.

H-Money is still a couple I kinda like. I do not expect them to get back together in season 4 (Please not another season that is fully devoted to coupling up all the character), but I would like them to start scheming together again. Let them figure out how to interact together as friends, and build a stronger foundation to eventually, in season 5 maybe, try again.

I have heard people suggest that Pete's power could maybe be extend to getting the other ghosts through the barrier if they are like holding onto Pete's hand. I want this. Now I know Sass will want to visit a Pizza Hut, and Issac a dinosaur museum, but I would say the most important thing to do with that would be to take Thor and Flower over to the Farnsby manor to visit Bjorn and his girlfriend Judy. It would also be cool if there was a lesbian ghost living there they could set up Nancy with. Since Nisaac is on a "respite" and queer representation (preferably healthy queer representation) is important.

Everyone remember in season 2 when we learned about Flower's super protective, formally MIA, army vet brother : Rob. You remember how the show's staff said they would love to have Rob come to the B&B for a visit, and were already considering actors who could play him? I want this episode. Also if you cannot directly tell Rob his sister is a ghost on the property, then can Trevor or Alberta use their powers to help Flower send a message to Rob. To say that she still loves him. I cannot deal that both siblings spent like 50 years thinking the other hated them when neither did. It is to sad.

It would be cool if we could also have Ira visit once too. I know Flower did not love him like she did Michael or does Thor, but he was still someone who was a big part of her life for a while, and knowing her cannonly had a large impact on his. Maybe we find that while he has done charities in her memory, trauma over watching her be killed by a bear has also lead him to sponsor bear hunts or poaching. Flower is horrified. Then Sam and Jay have to spend his visit looking for a way to convince him that is not what Flower would have wanted.

Four standard episodes for each season are a Halloween episode, an episode where Bela visits, one where Stephanie wakes up, and one where Crash appears and is slightly relevant. I have no idea what to do for an episode with Crash, but for the others

-Ghost animals on Halloween

-Home theater night for ghosts and guests on the night Stephanie wakes up, complete with all the drama of set up and shenanigans that going to the movies encores.

- Bela is broken up with Eric, she does not even like him. This time her and Jay's parents come with her for the visit. Bela wants all the latest gossip surrounding the ghosts, but they have to tip toe around the parents. Jay's dad does not fully support the B&B even without the knowledge that it is haunted, and Sam does not want to give her mother in law another reason to suspect that she might be crazy.

Owning back to the "Can Pete take the other ghosts off the property" theory, can Thomas Woodstone be a ghost who died visiting a neighbors property. We have no reason to see Elias again since he has decided to stay put in Hell. But Thomas reappearing could be interesting for both Hetty and Alberta. If he does show up though I want the twist to be that he is actually severally cognitively impaired (think Lenny from oMaM)... I mean the man was from an inbred family, played with lead based toys as a baby, had a cocaine addict mom, and a father who was a lot of things. He could not have been all there. Also address more on if Earl ever actually cared for any of the people he was two timing (again development that needs to happen to make Alberta want to go from dating an Earl to a Pete).

A Sasappis based episode that is not his death story. I feel like he needs at least one more episode exploring what his life alive was like, to be appropriately gutted when we learn about his secret death.

Actually maybe we can hold off on Sass's death and Hetty's ghost power until season 5. let's keep the element of mystery in the show for a little longer.

[s0ftand0nly]

This is about to be a long, kind of rambly post so stick with me if you want to, but I feel like a lot of people who make posts about Anakin have not experienced what it’s like to be groomed into doing what you don’t want to.

And no, I’m not calling Sheev a pedophile. Grooming isn’t inherently sexual. I suppose you could swap the word out for manipulated if that’s what makes you more comfortable.

Anakin did not jump from a good home life to the Jedi temple. He went from being a literal slave with an unhealthy attachment to his mother out of necessity for survival into an environment where he was immediately told that he was wrong. I’m not here to debate whether the Jedi were wrong or if their rules were wrong- I am ONLY saying they were wrong for taking this child, 9 years old, and telling him that he is wrong and a coward for doing what he needed to to survive day to day not even a full week ago.

Anakin was raised as a slave. We see multiple times what it’s like for slaves, but what impacted me the most were the Clone Wars episodes where Obi-wan and Rex are sold into slavery. It’s said explicitly in the episode that the slavers we see frequently make deals with the Hutts, and that fact alone makes it very likely that Shmi and even possibly Anakin were in those camps themselves at one point. These slavers whip and abuse the people there, force them to wear shock collars and leave lasting scars on both Obi-wan and Rex when they were both only there for a couple weeks.

Shmi would have been in one of those camps for years. If Anakin had, it would have been when he was an infant.

We even learn in one episode in season 2 that it’s commonplace to perform surgery on new slaves in order to implant a tracker in them so they can never be free. Anakin was not a normal kid with a normal, happy life.

Enter Sheev, who is immediately in a position of power over him and, not only that, but has consistent access to him. Anakin probably already felt wronged by the Jedi for being told he was a coward, but wow! The senator of Naboo later Chancellor thinks he’s very brave!

Anakin spent his entire life struggling with the Jedi Code- not because he’s inherently evil or selfish like some people like to act, but because he grew up being told the exact opposite. He couldn’t leave his attachments, if he did neither of them would be protected and they would both be killed. He showed anger when told not to because that was all he had ever been shown unless by his mother.

But all the while, he had a little voice in his ear telling him that he’s not like the other Jedi, he’s special, he’s better. Sheev played on his insecurities in every single scene we see them in together. He tells him to react to his anger, to keep his attachments and to be selfish. Anakin only gets worse from there.

Anakin’s problem has never been that he is inherently selfish or inherently evil. His problem was that he had no one close to him to tell him no- and anyone who did he was told to cut off by Sheev.

The tragedy of Anakin’s story has never been that he’s uncaring or cares only about himself, it’s that he was a child (22 in ROTS! i have mutuals older than that!) who was being told what to do and how to act by a man well over three times his age and he listened.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

A few people have defended Chloe and Lila's writing by saying that teenagers being just as capable of heroism as adults means that they need to be just as capable of villainy as adults. I know that's not good logic, but I can't put my finger on WHY it's not good logic, can you weigh in on this?

I actually don't think it's bad logic at all. They're right. Teenagers are absolutely capable of being monsters. A teenage bully may not have the wide reaching impacts of a terrorist, but teenage bullies still do real and lasting harm that can shape victims for the rest of their lives.

This is why you have to be really careful when it comes to redeeming either of these characters (and also Sabrina since she's almost as bad as Chloe in my eyes). You cannot minimize the harm that they've caused by saying "well, they're just kids" or even by pointing out that Chloe and Sabrina were victims of abuse.

Fourteen-year-olds are more than old enough to know right from wrong. Yes, they're not full adults yet, but they're in the stage of life where they're learning how to be adults. That's why we call them young adults! People in this stage of life are very capable of understanding that their words and actions can hurt people. Heck, three-year-olds are capable of that! If you don't think that these teenage characters understood that bullying Marinette was hurting Marinette, then you're arguing that these characters have some sort of developmental disability or psychological disorder or something of that nature that is effecting their development in an extreme manner. If so, then that requires immediate serious intervention by professionals, but I don't think that anyone is making that argument for anyone save, maybe, Lila.

On the abuse side of things: being a victim is not a free pass to hurt innocents. Victims don't get a magic ticket that says, "you may now do one free abuse" every time that they're abused. By that logic, giving Audrey an abusive past would absolve her of everything that she did to Chloe. The same goes for Gabriel and Adrien, which is why this is such shitty logic. Nothing justifies Gabriel and Audrey's actions. What they did to their children was wrong.

The same logic applies to all characters and all types of abuse. Victim status doesn't prevent you from becoming an abuser. It's actually quite common for abuse to lead to more abuse which is part of why you can't grant exceptions on the basis of victim status. If you do that, then you eventually reach a point where no one is accountable because everyone has been abused and is therefore a blameless victim who can do no wrong. No one wants to live in a world like that.

There is of course, a lot of nuance to this topic and a lot of it is heavily situational. For example, I totally believe that certain exceptions have to made for extreme cases that I'm not going to give examples of to avoid triggering content, but you can probably think of some. However, we're not talking about extreme cases here. The characters that we're talking about are reasonably normal fourteen-year-olds. Young adults who have been allowed to be part of society and who know that what they're doing is wrong. And if they don't know that bullying and terrorism are wrong? Then we're back to the concern that something is deeply wrong with these characters and they need immediate serious intervention from trained professionals.

To be fair, Lila may end up being that kind of character, but Chloe and Sabrina certainly aren't. Since Chloe was the character mentioned in the original ask, we'll focus on her for the rest of this. While Chloe has absolutely been abused, she's not some isolated victim who has no idea how the world works. She's been allowed a reasonably normal childhood. This scene from Malediktator is actually pretty solid writing for a character like Chloe:

Ladybug: I'm fine with helping you, Chloé, but first… I need you to tell me what happened. Why is your father— I mean, Malediktator, so mad? Chloé: It's because of this super lame loser named Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She's this horrible girl in my class and she hates me. (Ladybug looks angry, but then contains her feelings) She's ganged everyone up against me and she— Ladybug: Maybe this Marinette girl isn't entirely to blame? Chloé: Uh! Ugh. Okay, it wasn't totally Marinette's fault. She is really mean to me sometimes, but actually, this time, Daddy got angry all by himself. Ladybug:(not buying it) All by himself? Chloé: Yeah, because… there was something he couldn't do… Ladybug:(puts a hand on Chloé's shoulder) Chloé, it's me, Ladybug. You can trust me. You can tell me the truth. Chloé: I— I— Ladybug: Mm-hmm. Chloé: It— it was me. I hurt my daddy's feelings. Because I want to leave Paris, forever.

She knows right from wrong and she knows when she's hurting people. She just doesn't care most of the time because she's never had to face consequences for causing harm so why should she care? It's not like it effects her! This is why she only cares about the damage she causes when it effects her or the people she loves.

That's not a deeply messed up world view. A lot of people only have strong feelings about things effecting those they love. Chloe just needs to work on being more neutral to people outside her circle because that's how we make a happy functioning society. (This is a hint of that nuance I mentioned before. I'll give a few more hints as we go on, but we won't really be digging into it due to word count. Just know that I'm aware of it.)

Giving Chloe an abusive past didn't absolve her of her actions. It just gave us a potential reason for why she does what she does. This actually does make Chloe's abuse important! Once we know the reasons why her character is doing something, we can then understand her character and better guide her story. Understanding that she's a victim means that she can be helped because this isn't some inherent part of her. It's learned behavior and that means that she can unlearn it.

And now we get to circle back to the original ask and discuss why it's still valid to be mad about Chloe and Lila's treatment and why it IS bad even though it's not wrong to have "evil" teenagers.

The reason why Chloe and Lila's lack of redemption is concerning is because full grown adults who have done far worse things are being redeemed based on nothing while these two teenage girls are being treated as beyond hope. If Gabriel Agreste and André Bourgeois are allowed to have happy endings without doing anything to earn those happy endings, then why are Chloe and Lila being treated as devils? What message is this show trying to send to kids? That it's okay to be a terrorist as long as your reasons are good, but be a bully at 14 and you're doomed for life? That's total BS!

It's especially concerning because Chloe's bad treatment of her adult father is being used to justify his redemption while Audrey and Andre's terrible parenting is not being used to give Chloe a similar free pass. Writers, wtf are you doing? No one should be getting a free pass in this situation. They all need to take action to right their wrongs if they want to be redeemed. Andre shipping Chloe off to live with her mother is an adult man saying, "oops, raised that one wrong! We'll let's just pretend that never happened."

Don't get me wrong, Chloe's actions are still fully her own and she needs to own that, but crying, "Daddy" only held power because Andre did whatever Chloe told him to do. He held all the power and was happy to misuse it in order to make his daughter happy. That means that he holds blame here, too. He allowed his daughter to become a total brat by encouraging bratty behavior.

This was not a situation where Chloe was a danger to others for some reason. A situation where Andre was truly doing the best anyone could hope to do in order to keep his daughter placated so that she didn't physically hurt anyone. It was also not a situation where forces beyond Andre's control were effecting his daughter and shaping her personality while he was desperately trying to guide her down the right path. It was just plain old terrible parenting. He spoiled Chloe rotten, got the completely predictable end result, and then threw her out for a better version that someone else raised. What an uplifting message! (That was sarcasm.)

Chloe and Lila would have worked reasonably well in a story where all of the important characters were teens. A story where Lila was always the big bad, Gabriel was a minor character, and Chloe's parents never got any screen time.

That's not the story that the writers wrote, though, so the "teenagers can be evil" defense falls flat because if domestic terrorists aren't evil and child abusers aren't evil, but bratty teenage girls are, then what are we even doing here? This is extra true because the people this show is aimed at are not adult men. They're little girls who may very well relate to Chloe and Lila.

There's also the issue of Chloe being dammed while other teen characters were given a free pass for no real reason. Felix, Sabrina, and Kim have all done equally bad or even worse things. Felix is especially uncomfortable because he's basically a male Chloe who did all of the same actions - and often did them better - yet he doesn't have to give so much as a simple apology for what he's done. He's just good now because Kagami needs a boyfriend.

Chloe outed herself in public while emotionally compromised? So did Felix and he had weeks to plan before hand, too! Chloe did it in a totally reactive manner without any real plan.

Chloe used the miraculous that Gabriel stole? Felix stole the miraculous himself and gave them to Gabriel!

Chloe bulled Marinette? Felix bullied Adrien!

Felix even did some of the same things as Lila! He tried to ruin Adrien's friendships via manipulation and deceit in his first appearance. He knew Gabriel's secret and used it to his own advantage instead of telling the heroes. He used a major terrorist attack as an excuse to further his own goals. The list goes on! So why is he being welcomed onto the team with open arms? And why is no one telling Kagami just how dangerous her new boyfriend is? She wasn't there for most of this so she has no idea who she's dating.

And this isn't even touching the mess that was Derision's terribly delivered message about owning your actions and not blaming others for your bad behavior. That episode makes everything about Chloe's treatment look even more hypocritical.

In summary, the issue is not that teenagers can't be bad guys, they absolutely can! The issue is how all of the other bad guys and bullies are being treated compared to these two and how inconsistent the rules are. Of course, we haven't seen all of Lila's story, so who knows what the end game is for her. Maybe she'll also be trying to restore a dead wife and so she'll get a free pass, too.

[valtsv]

is all true crime bad? genuine question. not referring to the very obvious disrespectful ones that are usually brought up when discussing the topic but rather documentaries and things of the sort. I feel like a lot of the documentaries around real crimes I watched bring up issues that aren't really talked about and a lot of the times are covered by institutions/media and also inform people on various things that they probably wouldn't have been aware otherwise so to me they can be very informational. there's also cases where victims of abduction for example have been recognised years later because of media like this which is objectively a good thing so I would like to know a little more about other negative impacts that might not be so obvious. if you have any source I can research on that's also great. sorry to bother!

i think that "true crime" in itself is a nuanced and varied topic and have no intention of tarring everyone who has an interest in it with the same brush, because there are definitely respectful ways of engaging with it that do their best to avoid and minimize harm. however i think that the popular culture depictions of true crime and capitalization on it as a form of entertainment tend to do more harm than good to both victims, who are frequently exploited for "content" and/or have their trauma dredged up for consumption, and consumers/producers, since a lot of mainstream true crime media reinforces harmful stereotypes, paranoia, surveillance tactics, and social divisions, and sensationalizes human cruelty and suffering. not to mention that this kind of approach to and fascination with horrific crimes and unusually cruel and violent criminals may encourage more people to inflict violence on others in order to gain notoriety and fame.

i don't think it's wrong to be interested in these things and to want to understand what makes people do horrific things to other people. one of my hyperfixations is the history of decapitation/capital punishment and its legacy, which is a topic that is fraught with issues surrounding the abuse of some of the most marginalized and vulnerable members of society. i myself am fascinated by it partly because of my own past experiences with abuse and marginalization. being interested in unpleasant things doesn't make you inherently a bad person, and thought crimes don't exist. however it's really important, especially when it comes to topics like this, to be self aware and critical of the information you're given, and to be careful not to be taken in by popular opinion and stereotypes without questioning them, or to get so immersed in your pursuit of knowledge and understanding that you lose your grip on reality and fall victim to misinformation and bias. believing too strongly in your personal ability to recognize and identify criminals and "criminal traits" and "solve" crimes, especially when the justice system is as flawed as it is, is more likely to lead to incorrect assumptions, the persecution of the marginalized and vulnerable, invasions of privacy and miscarriages of justice than it is to help.

[windvexer]

This is in reply to a very long ask, which I would prefer to summarize.

As a young child, Anon and their mother left an abusive situation and moved into a new house.

When they moved, Anon began suffering from severe violent and grotesque intrusive thoughts even though they were a young child with no prior exposure to these things.

In order to cope, Anon shut out these thoughts as much as possible.

When Anon moved out of the house, these intrusive thoughts stopped and never returned.

Now, some years later and coming from a more stable place, Anon believes that these intrusive thoughts had a supernatural source. Not from a haunting spirit, but from the home itself.

Anon finishes the ask with: "So I think shutting out spiritual energy has become so deeply ingrained in me that I just can't get a proper practice going. Aside from getting good at warding to fill that role, I was hoping you had some advice on breaking down that barrier a bit?"

Anon, I hope I've correctly summarized your ask. I'm looking at it now on the other half of the screen to respond to what you wrote.

I am not going to comment on mental health issues. As you've said yourself, this is something you've worked through and doubtless you are very aware of the mental and emotional impact such a life transition could have on a young child.

Since I'm not qualified to speak on mental health or self therapy, let's move forward with the assumption that you did experience something supernatural - that something about the house, or within the house, was causing those thoughts.

It's my experience that the scariness of a supernatural event is often unrelated to how "powerful" that event was.

Many people who experience overwhelming negative spiritual contact tend to set out with the point of view that because these events affected them so strongly, that the event must have been caused by a very powerful force.

When I was in my first apartment, there were old hard water stains in the toilet bowl. My room mate scrubbed and scrubbed all day with zero progress, and declared the bowl to be permanently stained.

I went in and dumped some toilet bowl cleaner in, and the stains came out in about five minutes.

Despite all the work, my room mate had failed to use the necessary cleanser to actually resolve the problem.

It's just the same thing with unwanted spiritual contact. People use the wrong tools for the job, and declare the situation hopeless.

But more likely than not, the people who tell me they are struggling with debilitating spiritual symptoms have never tried any act of magic to resolve them, at all.

And more likely than not, the very first ward they try will resolve it.

Supernatural problems may be very difficult to resolve through mundane means, but they tend to be easy to resolve with supernatural means.

In my experience, a vast majority of people experiencing overwhelming spiritual contact can resolve the problem with basic warding.

I know that you're not in that old house any more, but I want to emphasize that dealing with these sorts of problems is really not as difficult as most people think.

You shouldn't set yourself up to think that it will take months of study to craft a serviceable ward, or banishment, or cleansing. Doubtless you could do all of them right now, if you had a decent recipe book in front of you.

I believe you could probably do this even if it was the first spell you had ever cast.

My first piece of advice is to ward pretty well. If you do not want to deal with surprise spirits popping up, I would recommend a pretty heavy-handed ward that limits most spiritual ingress.

This isn't because lots of spirits are guaranteed to appear, although in my experience it can happen to new practitioners. It's just about creating a safe space where you feel confident exploring the things around you.

A personal protection, such as a protective amulet, is also very helpful. For people really worried about spiritual protections, I recommend two; an "everyday use" amulet, and a very "heavy" protection likened to a suit of armor.

Protections need to be maintained. If you want to be a witch, learning how to monitor, feed, and manage ongoing protections is an important skill for beginners. Working with wards is an excellent way to learn this.

You should learn one method of cleansing and one method of banishing. These can both be more mild, "everyday use" sorts of spells. By this I mean you don't have to go nuclear - again, even very mild magical action goes a long way towards resolving supernatural problems.

I recommend this because it is very helpful as a witch to learn that you can control your environment, and start unlearning helplessness towards the vibes.

Many people who have an affinity towards the supernatural become helpless towards the dreary and damaging fogbanks of deleterious energy that settle around people and places. They become helpless because they don't know how to resolve it; it's just there, and it's something they experience, and that's that.

But you don't need to do that, because you have the tools to correct it.

Begin practicing, as often as you have an opportunity to do so, the art of adjusting the vibes. Teach yourself how to cleanse and revitalize spaces so that it's enjoyable to let your guard down and soak up what's around you.

Unlearn any internalization: "ugh, every time I'm in this room I feel terrible, even though I shouldn't. I don't know what's wrong with me." Begin pushing back. Fix spaces. Protect against unsavory people whom you can't avoid.

This undertaking, by and large, will teach you plenty of magic.

You should consider getting reacquainted with your spiritual senses through energy work, not through contacting gods or spirits.

This really eliminates the worry about contacting "something out there," and lets you focus on just playing about with some energies.

It can be danged useful, too. Learning how to shield - even something as ubiquitous and basic as a sphere of white light - can be significantly helpful towards blocking out unwanted supernatural contact.

Try warding your space for peace of mind, and then practicing some of the common energy work exercises: energy balls, grounding roots, cycling energy through the body and earth, breathing energy in and out, raising shields, channeling energy into objects, centering/reclaiming energy, and so on.

If you'd like to work with spirits, try talking to a tree that gives you really good vibes. Trees are often - but not always - remarkably friendly, especially domesticated trees in urban or suburban areas. They also tend to be more talkative than rocks.

You don't need to leave offerings or set up a contact schedule or anything. But if you feel that you're prepared to start reaching beyond yourself, a tree is a decent guy to start talking to.

Magically speaking, some people really have tapped down their own psychism and connections so much, that it becomes an actual blockage.

If you're trying to do magical or psychic work and you can't shake a weird feeling that something is actually in the way, like a boulder blocking the path, then this is of course a magical boulder and should be addressed through magical means.

You can try three things:

The first is personal cleansing of any sort, but especially done with a focus to remove magical blockages and barriers. Be aware that this may need to be done multiple times over a period of weeks, or longer, to take effect. If multiple cleansings are necessary, this is preferable over intense "lightning strike" cleansings that can rip things open.

The second is to give yourself permission. In your original ask you mention being familiar with shadow work, and so perhaps you are familiar with the idea of granting yourself permission or authority to engage in things, which deep down you are nervous of doing.

The third is to build a shrine that honors your own psychism and your own connections. Almost imagine that you are building a shrine to a lost god, forgotten for so long that he's turned to ash and dust. Burn candles, light incense, and give offerings to your own ability to connect. Lovingly tend to it, and treat it as a wayward spirit who now needs to be called home, nurtured, and restored to its rightful throne.

[dust-jacket-analysis]

Spoilers for the Miraculous London Special

One of the things I hate most about the lie that Marinette told Adrien, is how it's going to warp his perception of his father.

His father was not a good man. His father abused him. Controlled and manipulated him. In every universe, he chose to akumatize and use him in his plans to steal the Miraculous. He locked him up in a room and essentially used psychological torture techniques on his son. Forced him into a career not fit for children. Allowed/enabled Lila to spy on and make Adrien uncomfortable. Gabriel Agreste was awful (Bless Movie Gabriel for existing).

I feel like Adrien was just starting to find himself, and his voice. He was sticking up for himself a lot more, and fighting his father's abuse (even if it was often unsuccessful). And I think after the whole locking Adrien up in and essentially violating human rights, Adrien would've finally realized how terrible his father is. Realized that there was no repairing their relationship or redeeming him.

Even with Gabriel dead, while Adrien grieved I think we could've seen him work through the complicated feelings he had on his father. I would've loved to see him come to terms with the fact that his father, someone who he loved and who was supposed to love him, was also his abuser. That despite all this it was okay to love his father. But also okay to hate him. Just all of those messy emotions he was never allowed to feel or express while his father was alive.

But, then Marinette lied to Adrien. Told him not that his father was an evil man, who died to his own hubris. Not that his father was a domestic terrorist, that his father had kept his mother's corpse locked in their basement for years. No. Marinette called Gabriel a hero.

Ladybug, Adrien's first love, the person he admires the most, his partner whom he trusts with his life, told him his father was a hero. That he died sacrificing himself. He wanted to be remembered as a good father.

So now, Adrien has that in his head. On top of everything else: The guilt of not being at the battle to help, the complicated feelings of having lived his whole life abused and tormented by his father who proclaimed to love him, the grief that his father, his dad, is dead.

What's that going to do to his perception of his father? To have everyone tell him his father was a hero? To have Nathalie hug him through his grief and comfort him with the knowledge that his father is a "good man." To have Marinette, the love of his life and his girlfriend, tell him how his Father sacrificed himself to defeat Monarch in an attempt to spare him the truth? For him to hear it from the person he trusts and understands more than anyone, ladybug?

I guarantee it's going to fuck with him. Whether the writers, who seem to chronically hate giving Adrien any genuinely good writing, will show that is a different story. But realistically, and genuinely it's going to impact him.

He's going to feel guilty now anytime he thinks to resent his father for the way he was treated. Because on top of his father being dead, "he died sacrificing himself for you and the city."

The other thing that got me, is Ladybug telling Adrien the only reason his father locked him in that building with Kagami was to, "spare him from Monarch's final plan." Like bitch?? No!

Now anytime he feels resent for being literally psychologically tortured he's going to feel guilty for getting mad. Because now he has the idea that it was too "Protect him."

I love Marinette. And I understand why she felt she had to lie to Adrien. But it definitely is going to cause more internal issues and problems than knowing his father was Monarch. Especially since he's probably going to find out eventually, and then it's just a whole new issue.

[wixhing0nastar]

Abuse Narratives in RWBY: Yang Xiao Long Edition (Feat. Ruby Rose)

We've all witnessed and talked about Blake and Weiss being abuse survivors for years. Blake escaping from Adam and Weiss escaping from her father were both huge, impactful events that have shaped the narrative of the story in many ways.

Yang on the other hand has managed to fly mostly under the radar with the abuse she's suffered up to this point. Her jokey, happy-go-lucky facade tricking the audience just as well as it has her friends and family for years.

(Note: this is going to be a long post, so strap in. Also this is your warning I am not going to be holding back in my criticism of Tai, so if you don't want to see me go into detail about how exactly he abused Yang, I highly suggest turning back now).

TL:DR: Yang was neglected and parentified (aka: abused) as a child and that’s the root of a lot of the issues that she’s currently struggling with in Volume 9 and a large part of her healing is going to be centered around her relationship with Blake going forward.

Let's start by establishing what exactly I'm referring to when I say that Yang has been abused. Because while I'm certainly referring to her being neglected after Summer's death, I'm more so referring to the years of Parentification that was caused by said neglect (in addition to the verbal and emotional abuse hurled her way).

Let's start by defining what exactly Parentification is since it's where most of Yang's current problems stem from.

[Parentification is] a disturbance in the generational boundaries, such that evidence indicates a functional and/or emotional role reversal in which the child sacrifices his or her own needs for attention, comfort, and guidance in order to accommodate and care for the logistical and emotional needs of a parent and/or sibling. (Hooper, 2007b, p. 323)

Ruby establishes in Volume 9, Chapter 1 that Yang was the one who raised her. It's important to note that in the context of her saying that, she's telling Yang that Yang was the one responsible for her moral development as a kid.

Research has shown that the building blocks for morality are generally in place by the age of 4. However, "children need adults to help them at every stage of childhood to nurture these seeds into full development." (Harvard, Raising Caring, Respectful, Ethical Children, p. 1) With "childhood" commonly considered infancy to age 12.

Using this we can reasonably assume that Yang was Ruby's primary caretaker or at the very least co-parenting with Tai from the time of Summer's death to at least age 14 (when Ruby was 12)... which mind you, is already over a decade total and only three years before the show starts.

Now that we've got some of the science out of the way, let's start looking at the show itself to see just how bad the situation was.

Burning the Candle

This iconic scene actually paints a fairly horrifying picture of Yang and Ruby's early childhood when you start to break it down.

I waited for dad to leave the house.

Meaning that by that point, probably only a few months after Summer's death based on the timeline Yang establishes, Yang already knows Tai will reliably leave her and Ruby alone without supervision for extended periods of time in order to pull this off.

I must have walked for hours.

Meaning that it likely took several hours for someone to even notice they were missing in the first place. The fact Qrow knew exactly where they were indicates that Yang either left a note or clue about where they were headed and I'm willing to bet the only reason it took Yang that long to walk was because she was like two feet tall at the time (since Patch is like... a tiny island... which brings me to the next line...

A toddler asleep in the back of a wagon

Again, to clarify, Ruby was a toddler. Toddlers are between 1-3 years old... meaning this all happened when Yang was a maximum of (and likely, based on their physical appearances) 5 years old.

So to summarize, Tai was regularly leaving Yang, his five-year-old, home alone and in charge of her three-year-old sister... which would be horrifying to think about on its own but this is Remnant.

Which means that Tai was regularly leaving his grieving five-year-old at home alone when they didn't live inside a kingdom's border and there were known wild Grimm in the area... who are attracted to negative emotions.

Wow... I wonder why Yang felt the need to try to diffuse the tension with humor and keep everyone in high spirits all the time. It’s almost like it was a life or death situation growing up. (/s)

Anger, Fear, and Burn

Before jumping into the next big narrative piece, let’s talk a little bit about Yang’s semblance, Burn, and how it works. Because it’s important to establish before starting to dig into Volume 4.

Let’s start with how Ruby describes it:

Don't worry! With each hit she gets stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back! That's what makes her special.

Notice how Ruby doesn't mention anything about Yang needing to be angry to use her Semblance? In fact, while it’s unclear if this is entirely true, it has been stated previously that Yang’s powers come in part from her hair and no one has refuted that claim in like 8 years so it holds some weight.

Moreover, recent volumes have actually been hinting that Yang likely doesn't even need to use her anger to activate/maintain burn. And that she just does so out of habit more than anything.

Now, why exactly would someone intentionally limit themselves by tying their semblance into in emotion like that? Well, first let’s answer the question, why anger?

And well... anger is a secondary emotion.

A secondary emotion is an emotion fueled by other emotions... masking your feelings of sadness, hurt or grief with anger can be easier than experiencing the primary emotion.

And moreover,

The feelings that anger commonly masks include fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, embarrassment, betrayal, jealousy, sadness, hurt, and worry. (Alta Loma, Understanding Anger as a Secondary Emotion, Web, emphasis added).

Fear is, of course, a bit of a running theme in RWBY, there was a whole speech and song about it at the end of Volume 7, after all.

But more than that, there've been two people on two separate occasions who've called Yang out for being scared when she's posturing: Ren and Raven.

And while Ren was pointing out that she uses humor to try to deflect when she’s scared, when Raven said this to Yang she was absolutely outwardly angry... and Yang admits to being scared in the moment yet still standing there.

Also note that humor = friends/winning, anger = enemies/losing.

Which makes you wonder, what was happening growing up that made Yang instinctively react to fear of danger with anger and planting her feet instead of running away? For that let's go back to what we learned from Burning the Candle and the V5 short real quick.

We know there are living Grimm on Patch. Maybe not as many as elsewhere, but both times we are given glimpses into Yang and Ruby's childhood on Patch they are attacked by Grimm, which isn't a great sign.

How old do you think Yang was the first time she or Ruby had a bad day and attracted one of them on accident and she had to fight it off on her own (because she couldn't run, she had to protect Ruby)?

How many nights do you think Yang would spend reading Ruby stories and telling her dumb jokes to get her to laugh to try to make sure they weren't attacked? How often did Ruby have to force herself to be okay? For both their sake?

Volume 4

Now let's talk about Volume 4, aka: when Tai had the chance to step up and didn't.

Now right off the bat he's okay. There's nothing inherently wrong with him bringing her the arm and being excited at the thought because he doesn't know how she's going to react to it though it is a little weird he opened her mail without permission.

The rest of Yang's first V4 episode, however, makes it very clear both to us as the audience and Tai that Yang isn't doing okay... but Tai doesn't do anything to attempt to help her.

Which is why what happens in the next episode is kinda messed up.

Yang wakes up from a nightmare about losing her arm in a seriously traumatizing event and goes downstairs when she realizes there's a distraction people are over.

Then we get the fight and despite Yang laughing it off in the end... honestly Tai is being very condescending towards her, which Yang even points out. Like, someone made a slightly adult joke in front of her and he flies off the handle and starts a fight with her and starts making digs about her not being a real adult ready for the real world and let's just break that down before dealing with the actual problems in this episode.

Yang, as established, has been fulfilling the role of parent (while barely getting any parenting herself) for years. She's been fulfilling the role of an adult since she was 5! And at this point in the show she's also legally an adult. So not only is it condescending, it's also untrue.

Then we get this line.

I guess you lost some brain cells along with that arm.

Not only is this beyond callus, Yang is clearly actually upset by this.

And notably, she only treats it as a joke after Oobleck dropped his cup. AKA: after being reminded that they aren’t alone in the room.

(And remember, Yang uses humor as a coping mechanism).

And both Oobleck and Port can clearly tell that this wasn’t appropriate at all and immediately following that, they pointedly step in to ask Yang how she is doing with everything.

Which Tai has not done.

And Yang opens up to them! And she tells them that she’s still struggling and coming to terms with what happened to her. Which in turn causes Tai to finally talk to her about it, but he’s being pushy about her getting back out and “being her new normal” and even refers to her PTSD as moping when she just got done saying she’s still trying to process and recover.

And it’s again Port specifically who steps in and gives her some genuine advice without trying to push her her into anything she’s not ready for and then Oobleck joins in and they go out if their way to ham it up to make her laugh.

So overall, Tai’s being extremely dismissive of the trauma that she’s gone through and minimizing her feelings at every turn.

Which then leads to this scene...

Which is when Tai’s dismissiveness starts to make sense (and I’ll come back to this when I’m analyzing the last episode).

Let’s break it down. To start, Tai knows that Yang is going up to her room, they pointedly have her call out goodnight from upstairs so Tai knows where she is physically and what her intentions are.

Secondly, there’s no way that Tai doesn't know you can hear people talking from the front door from Yang’s room. He’s owned this house for like two decades minimum at this point.

So when Oobleck and Port ask after Ruby, there’s no way he should assume Yang won’t be able to hear everything he says. And he very much lays the burden of Ruby’s safety at Yang’s feet. He’s not going after her because he has to “look after some things.”

AKA: Yang.

And then she comes to him literally the next day wearing the new arm and wanting to train and he doesn't question her at all, even though 12 hours earlier Yang was very much not ready?

We then don’t see her at all for five episodes until we get the scene where she’s training with Tai and honestly, his advice is kinda horrible.

To start, even he says his advice is based on watching her Vytal Festival fights, meaning that everything is based on watching three matches.

He points out she uses her semblance to win every fight after the qualifiers (which is true), and Yang rightly points out that everyone uses their semblances to help them win. Then Tai says this:

Because not everyone else’s is basically a temper tantrum.

Not only is this very unlikely to be true, but even if Yang does need to rely on her anger to activate her semblance, calling it a temper tantrum isn’t accurate at all.

In fact, the way Yang uses her semblance takes a great deal of emotional regulation to pull off. She not only is able to make herself angry enough to use it at will, she’s also able to stop using it at will. Meaning Yang is capable of instantaneously switching from one emotion to another.

That’s not a temper tantrum, that’s someone with superb emotional control choosing what emotion to feel when it’s most appropriate.

Furthermore, the “what happens if you miss” comment is so ridiculous I don’t even know how to start other than saying we literally saw exactly what happens when Yang misses her first attempt in Volume 2! When her semblance is being revealed! And the answer is... she gets another shot.

And if they’re stronger... like not using the thing that makes her ridiculously powerful is certainly not going to help.

And honestly... Yang doesn’t do what Tai says. He says it’s useful in a bind but Yang doesn’t use her semblance only in emergencies from here on end. In fact, what she actually does is pick up some tricks from Pyrrha and she starts hiding her semblance from people!

And noticeably, Tai isn’t the one who tells Yang to fight smarter. That’s a line of thinking she develops on her own between the first and second times she faced Adam.

And then Tai takes credit for her “suddenly” getting better like she hadn’t successfully hit him so hard he needed to take a pause and the fight he did win was only because he attacked her when she was being vulnerable with him... her father who she’s of course not going to assume is going to attack her while she’s opening up to him... because she wouldn’t do that to Ruby.

And then we get to Yang’s last (real) episode of the volume when she’s setting out to get Ruby. Remember when I said Tai’s dismissiveness started to make sense and we’d come back to it? Well we’re back to it.

Note how Yang pointedly doesn’t tell Tai that she’s leaving, despite him having indicated to Port and Oobleck that the only reason he wasn’t also going after Ruby was because he was staying with Yang?

And how in the end he doesn’t leave with Yang to go find Ruby even though supposedly the only reason he hadn’t was because he wanted to make sure Yang was okay? And now Yang’s going after Ruby? Alone?

Paired with how pushy and condescending he was acting towards her in the other two Volume 4 episodes he was in, on top of having neglected and parentified her for at least a decade, this really reads as him wanting Yang to get better so he can shove her out the door to go after Ruby, and not him caring at all about her as a person.

(Which is why I really struggle to feel bad for him in his V8 scene... if he was so worried he could have been there).

Yang’s Actual Temper Tantrums

Let’s address these really quick before moving on to the final section. We’ve actually seen/heard of four different instances where Yang actually was having something resembling a temper tantrum while using her semblance.

I’m going to start with the Neon fight because it’s the easiest. But Neon as a character relies on knocking her opponents off balance by getting under their skin in a fight. She tries to make them angry and yes, it does work on Yang in this instance. But that’s Neon’s whole thing, in any other match up Yang would have been fine.

The other three times all had to do with her hair (namely, when Junior gets her hair in her trailer, when the ursa gets her hair in the Emerald Forest and... in V4 when Tai refers to her having a rough first haircut).

Going back to the bit about how Yang’s powers, in part, come from her hair and this actually makes a lot of sense in the context of Yang’s childhood. If she was regularly in charge of protecting Ruby and some of the finite power she did have as a kid was because of her hair, of course she gets freaked out by losing some... and we’ve already talked about Yang using anger as a mask for fear.

Bumbleby and Volume 9

So let’s talk about where we’re going now, because of all three of the abuse survivors in this show, Yang is the only one who hasn’t really been confronted with and forced to deal with it yet.

Because at the end of the day, being parentified and neglected for years has left Yang scared to open up emotionally and more than that, uncertain of her identity outside of being Ruby’s parent.

Because up to going to Beacon, that was basically Yang’s entire life. It’s entirely possible the only reason she went to Signal was to learn how to protect Ruby better all things considered.

Which is why the development between her and Blake is so important this volume. Yang desperately needs to be valued as something other a caretaker and protector and so far they’ve been emphasizing the fact that Blake loves Yang because she’s a goofy dork who makes her smile, not because she’s strong enough to level a mountain.

And while Blake’s relationship with Adam was abusive, unlike Yang, Blake does have a framework for health relationships thanks to Ghira and Kali and she’s worked through her own trauma from being abused romantically enough that she’s in a place emotionally to help Yang start working though hers. Starting by giving Yang a person she can trust not to leave who also isn’t and has never been dependent on her to muck up Yang’s healing process.

Because there’s a difference between someone choosing to stay and someone not having any other choice because they were/are dependent on you. And (absolutely no shade to Ruby here) she’s already had someone in the latter position choose to leave her anyways.

In Conclusion

Yang was abused as a child and into her late teens and is in desperate need of some type of unconditional love and affection that she doesn’t feel there are strings attached to in order to finally begin healing...

And therapy, but they’re a little low on that for the foreseeable future.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for telling my best friend that her child needs to be in preschool?

I am 22F. My best friend (22F) is a single mom to a 3 year old boy. The father of the child was very abusive and when he abandoned the family this year it was unfortunately considered a relief. However, being on her own to work and take care of the child became a challenge, but her friends, including myself, her boyfriend, and her coworkers stepped in to babysit so she could continue working and provide.

This little boy may have slower development. He could be autistic, or the father, who was previously the stay at home parent, did not do anything to cognitively support the child’s growth and did nothing more than the bare minimum of keeping him alive. Probably a little bit of column A and B. Either way, this 3, almost 4 year old STILL wears diapers and it is shocking to me. He is unsocialized, does not see other children his age, and almost lives exclusively at home (sometimes he goes to the park that’s within walking distance of home too but that’s it). His toys are not age appropriate, they’re more infant sensory toys rather than active play, and he has no books except for a goodnight bed story book. No ABC’s or 123’s are being taught. He cannot speak in full sentences, and hearing a single word from him is a miracle.

After the father left, I suggested she put him in preschool. I recommended the one I used to work at, where potty training was not even an issue, and the teachers would support potty training regardless of age. It was a fantastic upscale facility with LOTS of play and learning at every corner. She declined, saying that the recent absence of the father would heavily impact her little boy and he needed more time at home. (Money is not an issue for preschool by the way, great grandparents of the child offered to pay). She will put him in school in another year. And while I understand her perspective, being one of sitters is getting a little stressful (don’t get me wrong I LOVE that little boy SO MUCH) and I know that constantly rotating through sitters and panicking to schedule everyone every day strains her. Sometimes she has no choice to call out of work because she has no sitter, I’m worried that continuing this would lead her to get fired.

While I am not a parent myself, but have experience with early childhood education, WIBTA to tell her that she needs to put her child in preschool, for the sake of the child and herself and her friends?

What are these acronyms?

[aingeal98]

hiii i consider u a cass expert and since this has been eating at my brain for a few years at this point; do you have any thoughts on the way cain's poor excuse for parenting impacted cass on more of a cognitive/developmental level? like children need stimuli of all kind that she clearly didnt get even outside of literacy and social interaction and i think its super interesting to explore how cass has complicated relationships with things most people take for granted (like... did cain allow her to have any toys? to play any games other than the "two for flinching" thing? does she struggle with the fine motor skill needed for writing bc she really didnt have smth similar? omg is she ok?? i want to peel her like an onion so badly) sorry for brain vomiting over here i have thoughts and feelings about cass cain and its incurable

Anon you've come to the right place for incurable thoughts and feelings about Cassandra Cain! And you raise such a good point like there's no way Cain's abuse didn't leave her with more than just aphasia, illiteracy, cptsd, all the emotional issues... OK well he left her with a lot of stuff but still! You're definitely right that there's more. I'm no expert but one thing I know how to do is ramble about Cass, so:

In flashbacks we see young Cass doing a jigsaw of a rose in the dojo Cain's raising her in, which makes me think he did want to find ways to make sure her cognitive skills functioned even without words. Of course this is just me theorising but in terms of toys I think he would have carefully selected things that would stimulate her brain and improve her motor skills even without reading and writing. The image of David Cain carefully buying Jenga and Operation and making sure all the packaging with words on it never reaches Cass is now permenantly stuck in my head so thank you for that.

I do think she was definitely deprived of a lot though, and things like the jigsaw were clearly meant to be filler stuff for her before the actual fun games like "getting shot and dodging the next few bullets". I don't think Cain would have ever wanted Cass to be relaxed and comfortable enough to actually fully enjoy playing with toys, you know? If she was actually able to find things like jigsaws meaningful and fulfilling then his conditioning of her to associate getting shot with "fun game of dodgeball" wouldn't have been as successful. Cass may not have liked two for flinching but she did love the fighting and the dodging. Any thoughts of "why am I in pain when I could just be playing Jenga" would have never been allowed enter Cass's head. Which would be easy enough because (understandably so given the isolation) Cass looked up to Cain and got joy and fulfilment from seeing him smile. He doesn't care if she finished the jigsaw other than getting angry/worried if she fails. Whereas being able to assemble and break apart a gun while blind makes him light up with happiness/pride. So naturally, even with Cain making sure her brain isn't TOO different for her not to be able to function as the perfect weapon, she would still be deprived of important cognitive skills and stimuli.

The writing specific fine motor skills would definitely be impacted imo because while her training makes sure her hands can work a massive variety of weapons and probably permenantly injure a man in multiple places with each finger, writing is such a specific task that only comes naturally to us because we learned it so young. It can be learned later in life of course but the natural act of holding a pen and writing would feel so alien to Cass. And that's before you factor in her dyslexia like no wonder we only saw her pick up a pen once 😭 Cass being able to write the alphabet with any sort of ease and lack of intense focus would be a massive accomplishment given David Cain's fuckery.

And just in general being so isolated for most of her childhood would have impacted her brain so badly like even without the autism Cass must have been in overstimulated sensory hell after leaving Cain. So many voices talking, which she'd never heard before. So many smells and sounds and new textures and sights that are too intense for her eyes to handle. She missed out on an entire world and only got to start experiencing it when she was 8, that's got to have a longterm impact. I think as well as autism Bruce and Barbara had her tested for adhd due to all the symptoms she displayed. Doctors aren't clear if she actually has it or if its something different brought on by her upbringing. She spent nine years homeless and travelling so she's more adjusted than she was at the start but there's still times that the whole world just goes blurry and whoops panic attack time need to find an empty place and hide.

I'll stop here so I don't rant forever but thank you for giving me the chance to yell about head. canons and theories. Cass is indeed the most fascinating onion, and the layers are endless. Feel free to rant in my inbox whenever you want I love hearing other people's thoughts on her!

[galactic-rhea]

I love your analysis of The Simpsons. Homer is probably my favorite character in the series because he loves his family so much but still struggles because of his upbringing, and while that doesn't excuse the abuse and immaturity, it still makes an impact. I always think about that episode when Homer overworks himself at two jobs so Lisa can have a pet horse, but then she gives it up for him, telling him that the only dumb animal she needs is her dad. The Simpsons as a whole has been totally bastardized over the years, but ultimately, it's about family, and the beauty of it rests in the bittersweet.

[ This is the post mentioned in the ask ]

God, there are SO MANY episodes showing how much Homer actually CARES, and tries, despite a bunch of it sometimes being a bit inconsistent, which is probably why the movie always felt strangely OOC, in a way that felt closer to what you would expect from Family Guy.

Just of the top of my head, there's also the episode where they're told Lisa is a gifted kid and needs a let out to work with her intelligence, and Homer spends all the money they had been saving up from an Air Conditioning to buy Lisas' saxophone. There's also the episode where he gives up his best job ever (ironically under a literal James Bond Villain) because his family was struggling to adapt.

He stopped being basically a Beatle partly because of his family if memory serves well (although a big part of it was huh, Barney)

There's also Homer's whole arc about accepting the possibility of Bart being queer (despite it being a misunderstanding and also due peer pressure) and after that episode, ironically, he's sometimes shown being more progressive than Marge.

And Homer's fully support for Lisa's attempt at discovering the true about Jeremiah Springfield.

It's such a fun and contrarian personality that a lot of the jokes rely on him being awful, but them going through such extremes for his family, extremes that less "awful" parents wouldn't really do, it's interesting, and entertaining!

I wanna believe even later seasons have episodes that shine through, it's true is not the same and a lot of them aren't that funny anymore, and very flat in characterizations, but there's still creators behind it that tell me that they do care and keep trying on good episodes from time to time

[thestrangestthing89]

This is long and I'm mostly just trying to explain why I think it's important for El to have a stable family life rather than a romance at this point. Her interpersonal relationships have been pretty rocky. I think the way she forms relationships with other people is realistic considering she spent the first 12 years of her life living in a science lab. We know now that there were other kids there with her, but they weren't friends. She was bullied and isolated. She had a brief friendship with Kali during this time but Kali left. We don't know too much about the timeline here. And El forgot about a lot of this. So for the most part, she was alone here. And after age 7, it was her and Brenner and some other lab employees. She was the only kid. It was obviously an abusive environment and she was forced to do things she didn't want to do until she escaped. She had minimal interaction with kids her own age up until she was 7 and this wasn't a positive experience. But she forgets this. She doesn't remember interacting with other kids.

When she escapes from the lab, Benny is the first person who she comes across who is nice to her. She's understandably distrustful of him at first but just as she is starting to warm up to him, he gets killed. Because the lab went looking for her and he got in the way.

When she comes across Lucas, Dustin, and Mike these are the first kids she probably remembers ever seeing (except Will?!?! she recognized his picture). She has trouble communicating with them and we see this from the flashbacks in the lab too. She doesn't have a lot of socialization so it's hard for her to explain herself.

This interaction with the boys isn't necessarily positive. It's good that she is out of the lab and found people who could help her but she is still being used as a useful tool. A weapon. Just like at the lab. And it's not just the boys, it's Joyce, Hopper, Jonathan, and Nancy too. They need her to find Will and Barb. And she does this voluntarily. I think she feels guilty for opening the gate. And it's something that tends to drive her to help everyone in later seasons too. So while everyone in this group is a lot nicer to her than the lab, she still has a purpose here. They need her.

It makes sense to me that she would get fixated on Mike during this time. She spend a little more time with him than Lucas and Dustin since she was at his house. He told her about the world and gave her things to look forward to (like a place to live and the Snow Ball). He's mostly nice to her during this time, but he isn't always. When she fails to find Will he gets mean. This is not unlike Brenner. For the record, I'm not saying Mike is abusive. He's 12 and doesn't understand her situation at all and he's scared. But the fact that she doesn't want to run away from him even though he isn't always nice to her is a problem. Because she is used to this behavior. She is used to being punished when she doesn't use her powers well. She's used to getting locked in a room, so Mike abandoning her on the side of the road would have been familiar.

Lucas does apologize for being mean to her and she apologizes for hurting him. The two of them don't have any issues in later seasons. But her and Mike consistently do (and there are no apologies made between the two). And a lot of that has to do with him still viewing her as a superhero and not knowing the impact that that has on her (because I don't think she ever told him).

Her time with Hopper after this is also complicated. The kid spent about a month living in the woods alone in the freezing cold before he found her. From what we know of their year together, it was mostly good. They played board games, watched tv together, and Hopper read to her and helped teach her things. It's the first somewhat stable home she's had. I say somewhat because while this is a much better situation to the lab, she is still locked in here. For a year. Mostly by herself. She spies on Mike a lot because she is lonely.

Her and Hopper start having problems when their communication breaks down. When she first moved into the cabin it seemed like she would only have to hide temporarily. But it's been a year. She understandably wants to leave but Hopper is scared. He doesn't have control of this situation. When he apologizes to her later, he explains himself a lot better than he does during this fight. He says some awful things here (that he'll send her back to the lab). He's grieving and depressed and isn't handling this situation well. Hopper isn't great at communicating his feelings when he's upset. He does this to Joyce and Mike in S3. He struggles with this for a lot of reasons.

But this is El's model for fighting. She's allowed to yell at Hopper in a way she was never allowed to with Brenner. So in that sense it's a good thing. She doesn't have to hold back. It shows she isn't scared of him. I don't believe for a second that Hopper would have ever sent her back to the lab. He was frustrated and said something he didn't mean and he does apologize for this later. But this is how she learned how to communicate her problems to people. Hopper wasn't giving her what she needed and she found out he lied. She then runs away. For the second time in her life she runs away from her home. The lab situation was obviously a lot more problematic, but this one to me had a lot to do with Hopper not communicating well and letting fear take over. Which I think is partly why El does come back home. Hopper is probably the first person she formed any long term relationship with (besides Brenner). She spent a year with him during a time when they were both struggling. So it was a tense situation. She finds very brief periods of feeling at home at her mothers house and then with Kali but doesn't feel like she belongs with either. She runs away from both situations. The Kali one was a little more dangerous but she is scared at her mothers when she overhears her aunt calling Hoppers police station. She isn't ready to go home yet.

El doesn't really feel like she belongs anywhere and part of the reason she returns to Hawkins is because they are in trouble and she can protect them. Her superpowers give her a role here. People need her to save them. They need her.

So El at this point has run away from 4 places that she considered home (the lab, the cabin, her mother, and Kali). I'm not including Mike's here because she was only there for a few days and it wasn't her home so much as a temporary shelter. She was planning to stay with her mother and then Kali for a while. She also didn't choose to leave Mike's and had to because it wasn't safe.

Season 3 puts her in a very different situation. She's at the cabin but she has the opportunity to have a somewhat normal life. Only she doesn't really. And it's because she is fixated on Mike. Up until this point El pretty much forms bonds with one person at a time. Briefly Mike in S1, Hopper for a year in S2, and briefly her aunt and Kali. There are other people around but she doesn't bond with Kali's friends or with Lucas and Dustin as much, mostly because she doesn't know them long. She only spends time with them for a few days.

So now when she is allowed to leave the cabin and see other people...she stays in the cabin with Mike. All the time. Honestly, Hopper is right to be annoyed and worried about this. He doesn't handle the situation well, but calling it unhealthy was correct considering all the other shit she's been through. And Hopper has a much better idea of what El has been through than Mike. I'm not sure Mike fully gets what happened to her in the lab. I don't think anyone ever told him, which is why he still calls her a superhero. He doesn't get that it's bad in this case.

But El now has the opportunity to form other friendships and she doesn't. She doesn't know how. Her relationship experiences are limited and boil down to what she's seen on tv and those aren't realistic. So it's not bothering her to run off with Mike and ditch anyone else. It's interesting to me that Mike gets himself a girlfriend who has no clue that his behavior isn't normal. He wants to ditch his friends and hide away in the cabin every day, he stands still with his eyes open and doesn't move when she kisses him, and when he does kiss her back it's awkward. He's far away and he's moving her hands off him, and interrupting constantly to sing or piss off Hopper. They are things that only someone with limited relationship experience would ever look past. El doesn't know any better.

When Mike lies to her, she responds the way she did when Hopper lied to her in S2. She runs off and ditches him. She finds herself a BFF. She previously ignored Max. Her behavior toward her in S2 wasn't ok. She hurts her and ignores her for no reason other than she saw her talking to Mike. It's possessive and it's because she is lonely and she doesn't know how to form healthy relationships with people. Thankfully she lets up on this and realizes it was a mistake and lets Max in. It's unclear exactly what changed her mind here. She immediately goes to Max when she's confused about Mike and they probably had some interaction over the few months since the Snow Ball. But this is clearly the first time they hang out together. Maybe it was just loneliness that drove her to go to her house? It drives a lot of her attachments to people.

It's a relationship that is good for both of them but I want to point out that this season it's focused on El. She is centered here. El is once again getting the world explained to her because she doesn't know something. In this case, she doesn't know what she likes. SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT SHE LIKES. She is 14 years old and this is the first time in her life that someone prompted her to think about what she likes. She is dressing the way that she wants to for the first time.

El mimics people in the way that little kids do when they are trying to understand the world. So in this case she mimics Max. And when she runs into Mike she does what Max told her to do - she dumps his ass. Sometimes this is a justified response. But in this case Mike isn't given much of a chance to explain - Hopper is largely to blame for a lot of this situation but Mike does make a lot of excuses for himself. However, El isn't willing to hear any of this out. She dismisses him and ignores him being upset that he was spied on. She is doing what Max would do and in this case that's not exactly what's best. Max is 14 and hardly a relationship expert herself and El still isn't communicating well. She doesn't even tell Mike why she is upset with him either or how the lying made her feel. It's not a conversation so much as her having a girlboss moment. It's not one that actually fixes any problems. She still doesn't know how to do that.

When Hopper dies and she's left without a home and her powers she decides to get back together with Mike. He's familiar and once again her loneliness drives this decision. His opinion is also not asked for. And she doesn't notice his awkward fumbling over the I love you declaration. Another thing that would have been a red flag to anyone who has been in a relationship before (I mean he point blank said it was heat of the moment stuff and tried to pretend he forgot). In S4, She has a new family now and it's somewhere completely new. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being in Lenora gave her a chance to have a normal life. She got to be a regular kid - one without powers who gets to go to school. But this situation leaves her feeling vulnerable. She's away from Max - the first positive relationship she's had, and she's getting bullied. She fixates on her bullies and makes it sound like they are friends, I think so she can feel like she belongs.

Because this is the first time El is confronted with the fact that she's different and kind of weird. Sure the boys said so when they first found her in S1, but she started dressing like everyone else so that was fixed. This group fully accepted El and her idiosyncrasies in a way that most people don't. This is the first time she interacts with a lot kids her own age and it's very obvious that she is behind academically and developmentally. She spent her childhood in a lab so this makes sense. But the other kids are awful about it. She is in a very vulnerable place here and feels defenseless.

I am assuming she didn't form much of a relationship with Jonathan during this time because he even pulled away from Will. Joyce was likely there for her and knew that she missed Hopper so they probably talked about it. But she does leave suddenly with little explanation. It was for a good reason but feeds into El's abandonment and vulnerability.

And I don't think her and Will were very close. They went to school together and probably talked about that, but Mike is unintentionally between them and making it hard for them to bond. So I think El probably felt alone a lot of the time. Her and Will clearly care about each other and are relieved to reunite, but I don't get the impression that they are friends. And a lot of that has to do with El not really knowing how to be still. Because when Mike shows up she completely ignores Will. She knows the two are friends but he is very much a third wheel here. She's never really had a relationship with more than one person at once before. Mike was struggling with this in S3 but he has the benefit of having friendships his whole life, so he's able to correct this more easily.

But she ignores Will's feelings and on the surface so does Mike (though he was paying very close attention to him the whole time). But she's also not really considering Mike's either. She decided they were getting back together without talking to him and gets mad at him for not saying he loves her. She fights with Mike the way she does with Hopper. A lot of yelling and hurt feelings. She dismisses his experience with bullying because she can only see her own pain. The miscommunication happening here is entirely El. Mike starts off this in the way that he should. He does the same thing to Will later. But Will responds in an emotionally mature way and El doesn't because she doesn't know how to. So the conversation quickly devolves into an argument.

She ends up running away from home once again. She runs away when there are problems. Sometimes, like the lab, that is the correct response. But sometimes, like here, it's because she doesn't know how to work through her problems with people. She doesn't know how to have those conversations because she never learned. She runs back to the lab because she's feeling vulnerable and alone. She also hears that people in Hawkins need her. She's their only hope. It's kind of an impulsive choice to go. She doesn't spend much time thinking about it and when she gets there and realizes Brenner is there she tries to get out. It's interesting to consider what would have happened had Joyce been in Lenora when this went down. I don't think she would have just let Owens take her and it may have made her not want to go (at least not alone).

But part of the reason why she wants to is because she feels like she has no purpose without her powers. And people need her when she does have them. She likes to be needed. Mike says a lot of similar things. He needs El to need him. He feels useless when she doesn't. It's not good that either of them think like this. She goes through a very traumatic thing once again and resurfaces memories that she forgot about. El never got the chance to deal with any of her lab trauma. She's young and likely didn't talk about any of it with anyone. But this has such a huge impact on her emotional well-being. Her self-worth is tied to her powers, and her powers are tied to her abuse, but at this point she is realizing she doesn't want to be a superhero. She does get some closure with Brenner though which is a good thing. I think it puts her in a place where she is starting to heal for the first time. But she's unable to save Max, a person who she has grown to care about a lot. She wasn't able to be the hero this time.

Which leaves El in an interesting place moving forward. Because Mike liking that she's a superhero is a big problem and her not being able to save Max is going to hurt her self-esteem. Mike calling her a superhero is something he doesn't notice is a problem because he thinks it's cool. And when he's called Dustin and Will that in the past they liked it. But he doesn't know her lab origin story. So he doesn't understand that her powers are tied to abuse and it's not an empowering thing for her to be called this. Mike and Brenner's attitudes toward her powers are similar - not the same. Both think it's interesting and useful that she can do this. Mike in a more childlike way where he idolizes superheroes. And Brenner in a creepy mad, scientist way.

So after knowing all of this. After knowing everything El has been through. How can anyone suggest that El needs to be in a romantic relationship with Mike? Because she has had nothing but an unstable childhood full of trauma. And obviously because of this, she doesn't know how to form healthy relationships with people or handle problems well. It isn't her fault. No one taught her. She didn't get to learn the way the rest of us do. But it doesn't change the fact that she struggles with this. It doesn't change the fact that Will and Mike have both had their feelings dismissed by her and she didn't notice or apologize. And it doesn't change the fact that what she actually needs is a stable, normal life. Which is why it is so so important that she now has a family. And it's so important that she learns to form relationships with people. Her and Max haven't spent that much time together, but it's also important that she spend more time with the rest of the group too.

I always assumed that El had Post-Institution Syndrome but I don't think that's ever been confirmed. I think it's far more interesting for her to go through this journey and end the series with a stronger sense of self and a stable support system than it would be for her to have a boyfriend she doesn't communicate with or understand. It would show character growth in a way that a romantic relationship just wouldn't at this point for her.

I think she's at the point where she is realizing this herself. She wants distance from Mike at the end of the season and she is happy to be reunited with her family. She deserves her lost childhood back.

Edit: Apparently this kind of post qualifies as El hate. This post explains why it's not.

[heyitschartic]

The Goddess Did Nothing Wrong Essay

Goddess is one of the most mistreated characters in Ward, by the fandom and by the author. Check the comments under any of the chapters with her in it and you'll see exactly what I mean. It's a fucking shame because Bianca just doesn't get talked about or appreciated enough. Understandably I guess, she isn't a main character or anything, but she's easily one of the most interesting characters in Ward to poke at, tear apart, and piece back together. And despite what the people crying in the Ward comments say, Goddess didn't do anything wrong.

This is going to involve Ward spoilers just FYI, so I'll keep the rest below the line.

Alright, let's talk about Goddess.

It still shocks me that she's around for only like an arc, she's easily one of the best characters in Ward, from her swag to her powers, to the play she makes almost immediately. It feels like she should have been around much longer. When she died I got so mad that I dropped Ward for like a month. Better people than I have discussed her similarities to Vicky, but I think what interests me more are some things that are solely hers. Things that never really even get talked about in the story.

We don't know Bianca's trigger event and I really doubt Wildbow is ever going to tell us. Hell, he didn't bother to give her a sixth power, so I'm not holding my breath. But, we can look at her powers and sort of work back from there. (All of this was done by my great friend Maya, so thank you so much to her <3)

Human master that only affects capes, part influencer part control, with heavy doses of putting herself first, authority figures, and loyalty sprinkled through the themes her power works with. Her trigger was probably betrayal by an authority figure, likelya cape, that upended her entire world. Someone she implicitly trusted to do the right thing. Someone with power over her that she sought out for help.

Secondaries rely more on the person than the trigger, so they can help flesh out who she was. A danger sense that lets her know when things are happening, feel the impact of them, but she can't see coming or stop. A trump boost, something that could reflect a need to do or be better in critical moments. A trump defense that works best with long term trauma and pain, but struggles with sudden reveals or reversals. And finally a shaker effect, fractal telekinesis, reflecting a messy environment that she can't hold or control because of its complexity.

Whoever Goddess was before her powers, it was someone weak and without any control over her life. Someone hurting and powerless who didn't see this betrayal coming, didn't see how much danger she was in, until it already too late.

I think her master power is the most important thing to understand about her because of what it represents. It paints all of her actions in a very different light. Her most fundamental trauma was a betrayal by authority. Afterwards, she likely didn't feel safe around others, especially not those in power, didn't trust them to run things because she'd been betrayed by people promising these same things. Her taking over Shin may have been like Taylor going after the bay, convinced she was the only one who could fix it.

And a lot of the fucked-up dynamic with her cluster probably played into this. We know Goddess and Bill were the problems in the cluster, but I find it interesting Bill is noted as the monster, not her. In March's interlude, Megan paints a really fucked abusive view of how their cluster was working, getting hurt by someone and then hurting them back worse in turn as things began to spiral until Goddess took Bill's day. And from there everything exploded and she found herself on Shin.

I'm not really going to defend what she did on Shin. It might be a surprise in the Goddess Defense Essay, but obviously a seventeen year old (I believe that's approximately how old she was at the time) isn't going to make the best choices when put in charge of a planet. There's plenty of stuff to point at and go "that sucks" like the universal english thing (though I think that may have been a byproduct of needing to know she wasn't being lied to, again her trauma at play.)

Instead, I want to talk about why she was sent there. Again, speculation cause none of this ever got explained, but Wildbow had early issues of Worm that took place on Shin, where the Parahumans formed mainly hostile groups attacking larger power structures and enacting control over governments where they could. If this was true for Shin in Ward, Cauldron might sent Goddess there as a stabilizing force (something we know they did). Someone to corral the capes under her banner and allow them to use the world as a research ground for parahumans. Again, all conjecture on my part, but it would make sense why Ziz would pop open another portal there. Like she did with Madison and the Cauldron base, Goddess' absence likely led to some wild problems that tore apart crucial research they were on the cusp of finishing.

Her being forced to another world is another interesting part for me. This woman is a master, someone who takes complete control of others, but again and again she finds herself pushed from one point to the next without agency.

Speaking of which, then Gold Morning happens. She's torn away from the planet she controls, loses her cluster mates, and then...does nothing for two years. Honestly, this might be more character defining than anything else. She doesn't try to build back power, doesn't storm Shin intent on reclaiming everything, she sits on her hands. I don't care if the Wardens were watching her, if she really was as big a megalomaniac as people claim, she would have pushed to retake her world.

But she didn't. She stepped back. And I wonder if that wasn't something she wanted. The chance to step away, to not feel like she's always being pushed, always hounded by a danger sense warning of lurking dark clouds on the horizon. A trauma about needing to be in control over everything. A chance for her to finally be able to make her own decisions and not be wrapped up by the strings of others machinations or expectations.

And then Teacher came. Goddess makes it clear how relentless he was, trying to get her stuck in a position where he could kidnap her. I’ve heard the argument made she should have just gone to the Wardens, but let’s be real, what could they have possibly done to help her? They wouldn’t trust her enough to house her in the Wardens base so then what, drop her off in some corner world until Teacher found her again? Leave her with Ciara to watch over? Station guards on her twenty-four seven? They’d want concessions too, things that would hamper her if she really did run out of other options.

And, again, her trigger was very likely about a betrayal by authority figures. Going to the Wardens to plead for help would hit at her trauma in all the worst ways. To her, there probably wasn’t any other clear choice forward but using her powers on the prison. Of course that’s what she went for.

I think everyone knows what happened from there.

I've seen her relationship with Amy framed as the reason she gets so much hate, and yes that certainly played a role with the fanbase, but I think it's more than that. I think a lot of people saw her use her powers on the protagonist and just would not give her a single inch afterwards. Everything she did had to be wrong, she's forcing people to fight for her, she's being mean to the characters, she's stressed and angry and such a bitch. It’s probably part of the reason she gets killed off, and god that was the worst way to handle it. If the reflections of Vicky in Goddess were intentional, having Amy betray her might have been intended as a reflection of the way she betrayed Vicky. I hope not. It's a horrible way to end things.

Goddess' story isn’t one of a tyrant getting what she deserves. It’s a tragedy. It’s a woman who controls others but is all the while still not truly in control of her own fate. It was a woman pulled from one spot to another: by her cluster, by Cauldron, by her expectations, by Taylor, by Teacher. And in the end, it finished as it began. Betrayed by someone she trusted intimately.

Only this time, she dies for it.