#and I don't want to perpetuate the abuse that was done to me by mentally ill parents
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Doubling up my sertraline dose for this last trimester and postpartum, on the recommendation of the midwives. I do think I've been feeling the new imbalance over the last few weeks especially. Extra weight and blood volume means that the low starter dose I've been on for years just isn't cutting it anymore. I've been doing so well with my capital-D Depression for the last few years, I sort of forgot what this lack felt like. Today I said to my partner, that even after having a spiritual awakening or whatever the fuck happened to me last summer, I still have to recognize my physical body has this chemical imbalance. The inherited biological wackiness of my brain is not magically fixed by wisdom or meditation or... really much of anything except a re-balancing of chemicals that it fails to produce on its own. I can help that along holistically with diet and other habits to reinforce a healthier hormone balance, but the majority of the weight is pulled by a single tiny pill. It's good to remind myself of this, and to remember to take the damn pills so you can remember why life is worth living???
#it's good that I have years of experience#so that now I can recognize Depression from miles away#before it gets so bad that digging back out is its own mountain to climb#now it's just... “oh the brain is doing the sick thing time to adjust the Medicine”#whether that's literal prescription medication or more sunlight or better food or time with plants and animals... there are many helpers#but the drugs are very important and I must not forget#I'm dwelling on this because with my mental health history I'm rightly paranoid about an extreme postpartum relapse#and I don't want to perpetuate the abuse that was done to me by mentally ill parents#so#a lot of self checking#fred is pregnant
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For the people that are going to do Dracula Daily this year:
One of the subplots that Dracula covers, and arguably the most important subplot, is one centered around a psychiatric patient confined to an asylum- it touches upon the way he sees the world, his relationship with his doctor, and how he relates to and perceives the villain VS the heroes, since for most of the plot he believes the villain to be good and strives to serve him.
Both the patient and the doctor characters (who are part of the main cast and very important to moving the plot foward in their own ways!) are portrayed as sympathetic victims to the main villain and mostly on the side of good, but in different ways, and, of course, the way they are written is informed by the beliefs of the time.
I won't spoil anything too important about it, just warn you that this subplot depicts Victorian Era ableism, which is... pretty extreme, and forms of medical abuse (specifically, psychiatric abuse) that still exist today!
This plotline involves:
-depictions of hallucinations, delusions, and irrational thinking
-medical malpractice: delusions being encouraged, patients being dehumanized, prolonged use of dangerous restraints
-unsanitary behavior (eating live animals)
-ableist attitudes from most of the hero characters
(other Dracula fans pls tell me if I've missed something)
What do I make of this? you ask. Well...
Do not excuse medical abuse, even if it's fictional. The doctor character is, for all his medical malpractice, depicted as a complex person that has some likeable traits and he undergoes a pretty sad arc relating to loss and trauma, like most of the heroes of this novel. This doesn't make him any less of an abuser, nor makes his patient any less of a victim!
Refrain from using ableist language or rethoric. The patient character, being written for a very old horror book, is often depicted as "unsettling" and his strange behavior is sometimes played for horror. This 1) doesn't make his situation any less deplorable 2) doesn't make him any less sympethetic and most importantly 3) doesnt give you a free pass to treat him as a scary horror monster. He's a victim of both the real monster of this story and the system he lives in.
Listen to psychotic fans. Research the history of Victorian asylums. Understand the historical context. Look at this subplot from a holistic perspective instead of treating it as a horror story within a horror story (although, it is a horror story, but not for the reasons some think it is!). Just don't be a dick to disabled people.
If any part of this subplot triggers or squicks you, you are not obligated to read it, just be aware that it exists and that it is important to avoid perpetuating ableist stereotypes, be they present in the original text or not. (Hell, you are not obligated to read any part of the book if you don't want to do so. Dracula Daily is supposed to be fun. Analyzing literature is supposed to be fun. Enjoying literature is supposed to be fun!)
For the love of God, don't get angry if some fans dislike the doctor character for what he's done and take the patients' side. This was an issue during the last Dracula Daily run. He's literally the victim in this relationship. I'm not saying you can't like or dislike either character but I have to reiterate: do not erase either character's contribution to the plot, do not demonize the patient character for being mentally ill in an "ugly" way and beliveing the villain is good, and don't woobiefy the doctor character because he said a funny thing once. Both are complex adult human beings so don't expect them to be caricatures.
Do not be afraid to call out ableist behavior from other fans, but also be careful to not overstep or talk over disabled fans, especially psychotic fans.
During the Dracula Daily run, some blogs will warn about the entries in which this subplot takes place, and what triggers apply for each one of them. If you need those warnings, don't be afraid to reach out for them!
Happy reading!
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It baffles me that some people think the only reason people talk about the awful things Ed did in canon is because they hate him
not because he's... y'know..... a SUPER INTERESTING CHARACTER
Redemption arcs are freaking delicious, man. But in order to have one, you need to actually have done... bad shit.... to begin with??
Like how Izzy was a bossy bastard to Stede's crew in S1? Then stepped up to protect that crew from Ed, when Ed turned on them all and Izzy started to see 'the kids' as his crew?
The redemption arc of Ed - a man who's done genuinely bad abusive shit that was certainly influenced by his atrocious mental health - would have been even more fascinating. If it had been handled well.
As anyone who suffers with severe mental health issues knows: this shit is fucking ugly. It's not about pretty sadboy aesthetics or quirky 'teehee so chaotic' bouts of hyperactivity. Sometimes you fuck up. Sometimes you fuck up, badly. Sometimes you hurt people. You lose friends and push away family and may even end up isolating yourself through cruelty to others as a form of self-harm.
Before the inevitable bad faith actors wilfully misinterpret what I'm saying: Mental health problems don't cause abuse.
But they can be one of many contributing factors. If you have a disorder like my own (which I certainly headcanon Ed as sharing!) where you are incredibly sensitive and reactive to any hint of negativty or rejection, you have to expend genuine time and energy on learning techniques to control yourself, for the sake of others. When that doesn't happen... well, I was excited to see the consequences depicted graphically on screen.
But no matter the cause, you still have to take responsibility for the harm you perpetuate?? And I want to see that on screen, too!
If you were physically mutilating a guy repeatedly over whom you held power as his captain (and no, Izzy did not 'deserve it'; get your victim-blaming bullshit out of here), and you kept everyone else in a perpetual state of fear in the hopes that one of them would snap and kill you..... you still did that? Even if you were motivated by suicidality?
If you forced two people who deeply cared for each other to fight to the death, because your mental health was so awful that you couldn't believe that love was real......... you still chose to hurt them in such a deeply personal way?
If you chased a guy around with a knife For Funsies and made him constantly break down in tears because you were so engrossed in your own issues that you genuinely didn't realise you were traumatising him... You still traumatised him!
Exploring what comes next is incredibly interesting. It could have made a great plot about accepting accountability for one's actions - but also understanding that even people who've done terrible things can change and heal (although obviously, their victims owe them nothing).
Like. Excuse me for wanting to explore such a complex, fascinating, multi-faceted storyline centred on mental health issues near and dear to my heart for one of my favourite characters? And for being disappointed that the show and half the fandom took the simple & boring way out by pushing all of The Atrocities under a rug, because they struggle to love a character who has done abhorrent things?
#ed teach#edward teach#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd meta#izzy hands#ofmd s2 spoilers#jim jiminez#ofmd fang#ofmd blackbeard#ofmd izzy#ofmd edward teach#tw suicide#tw mental health#tw mental illness#tw abuse
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I haven't seen WBN, so I can't comment on the comparison, but on the subject of Liliana, one of my favorite parts of last night was how Matt anwsered Fearne's question about how Liliana got involved with Ludinus. The whole scene with Liliana was stellar, but that answer made it so clear that is she is in a cult. The way Ludinus found her while she was unsure and looking for answers, mentored her, and showed her the "truth" about Predathos is a classic cult recruitment story. And her reasonings for staying in the cult after having recognizing some of its faults also rang true. She needs to "protect the children", the methods are wrong but the "truth" at the heart of their mission is right, the us vs. them mentality and fear of the exandrian authorities, etc. And I can see how that can make her sympathetic. She was taken in and conditioned by a charismatic, powerful leader. But Matt and the others have also made it clear, including in that scene, that she is complicit, and that the pcs at least recognize that her guilt does not absolve her. The members of the Manson Family who committed the Tate Murders may have been indoctrinated by Charles Manson, but they still killed 5 people in an incredibly grusome manner. The fact that they were following orders doesn't absolve them of their crime. And historically, cult leadership (which Liliana seems to be) who attempt to "fix" a cult either don't make any meanful change, or actually make it worse. I, at least, am very curious to see what will have happened in that regard when she next shows up. In short, people need to learn about nuance, and maybe sociology, and the Liliana scene was fantastic.
Hello anon. Are you spying on my Discord messages. This is not an accusation but I literally brought up the Manson Family there in discussion of how a lot of the WBN fandom in that like, people see wizards of the citadel (rightfully) as The War-Mongering Establishment, but forget that actually, there exist plenty of counterculture groups that also suck and just bc the US Government does horrible things doesn't mean the Manson Family doesn't. What if the Citadel AND a lot of Witches fucking sucked.*
To get back to Critical Role though, YEAH the Vanguard has been hitting every single aspect of a cult, and look. I get that the best way to get people irl out of a cult is to just be present for them when they decide to leave and not cut them off (the same is true for how to help people in abusive relationships) but also once they start murdering I feel that is no longer the move. The Liliana scene made me deeply uncomfortable and unsettled in the best way, namely, I knew they were talking to a cult member who is in too deep for them to get her out right now, and who has done terrible things to innocent people in service to that cult. Which brings me back to the first paragraph: a very true twist on "what if both sides of a conflict sucked" is "what if the victim of a system can still perpetuate the harm of a system onto others". (Also, if we want to throw Midst into the list of things where people have no-nuance no-sociology takes, and talk more about Steel? "what if someone with power within a system can still be a victim thereof."
Like, that is a really consistent set of issues in media analysis, actually. There's a lot of "this is the good side, and this is the bad side," and "this is a victim, and this is a perpetrator" and no understanding of "both sides are bad (or even complicated)" and "wow it's almost like the way systems and especially cults keep running is because everyone except the very top is to an extent a victim, but also everyone is a perpetrator." Very few people are unfettered evildoers doing it just for kicks. You can have sympathy for Liliana and also acknowledge that it's pretty valid for Orym to have no room for that sympathy. Traumatized and manipulated people can still be shitty people.
*I'm neutral-to-faint-positive on Suvi/Ame as a ship but actually "wow both our establishments really suck, how can we make something better together" is a great basis for a ship and "oh my god no witches are perfect and right and wizards are Bad and Wrong you're so correct about everything" is a dogshit basis for a ship which I think is worth highlighting given that we are in fandom spaces here although I may come to regret this when I'm sober.
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gifset by seraph-novak
So there’s a critique of this scene (and Ed in season two as a whole) that I haven’t been able to shake. The post went into how the whole mermaid sequence was ruined by the rest of the season -- about how this beautiful scene was, put in the context of Ed’s behavior in the rest of season two, an ominous rebirth of a villain. The writer couldn’t see Ed as a protagonist finding the will to live; they saw a monster getting another chance to terrorize his victims.
I really hate that. I’ve already typed way too much about how I don’t think that Ed is abusive or that the Kraken Era was all that bad, so of course I disagree with any take that characterizes Ed as a monster. But do you know why this post stuck with me?
It made me unreasonably sad.
There’s a danger in over-identifying with characters (and I do think that a lot of the tension in OFMD fandom comes from over-identification), but it’s so easy for me to understand what Ed’s going through in the first three episodes of season two. I’ve been there. Judging by this post, many of us have been where Ed is.
We’ve struggled to live while we’re drowning. We’ve been trapped and hopeless and desperate for a reason to keep going -- for someone to give us hope that things can be better.
And we’ve also hurt people in our despair.
When I was in my Kraken Era, I was a sick college student who’d been fighting depression since middle school. I’d just escaped a “friendship” with someone who (I can admit in retrospect) abused me mentally and emotionally, and I had no other friends because that person had effectively isolated me. I was alone and I was convinced that I was a fundamentally unlovable person who had no right to exist.
I pushed the few people I had around me away. I isolated myself from my mother as much as I could while living in her house. I cut off communication with my online acquaintances (who would later become good friends) and didn’t speak to anyone at school. For a while, I was so focused on my pain and self hatred that I barely thought about other people. It was an intensely selfish and self-centered existence, and I hurt my mom and everyone who could’ve been a friend. When you're in that desperately hopeless, depressed mindset, you don't care about hurting people because your own pain is so all-consuming. If anything, you want to hurt others so they'll give up on you in the same way you've given up on yourself.
It’s different from what Ed did, of course, because he’s not me and I wasn’t a pirate captain with the lives of a crew in my hands. The harm I could cause was severely limited by my lack of power, but I still caused it. I was still trying to isolate and cut ties and push away anyone who could’ve helped me even when I desperately wanted help. I wasn’t a good person.
Watching Ed go through a self-destructive arc that’s immediately identifiable, deeply personal, and so well done was incredible, and seeing the show support him instead of demonizing his behavior? I have no words for the way I felt during season two’s run.
OFMD makes Ed a sympathetic character who’s worth loving even when he’s at his lowest. It gives us a lead who fucks up when he’s in the depths of his despair and it doesn’t pity him or wave away his problems or make a monster out of him. It doesn’t even have his romantic interest save him! Instead, it lets Ed save himself when he realizes that there’s still hope and love out there.
This show reminded me that we’re not monsters even if we’ve hurt people. It told me that recovery is possible, and so is forgiveness. It asked me to keep loving Ed through his entire arc, and in doing that, it forced me to love the parts of me that I’m still working on as well.
So I know that I shouldn’t be bothered by people who see season two Ed as an irredeemable monster who gets an undeserved second shot at life, y’know? But even though I’m a decade and a half out of my own Kraken Era, I’m still in a perpetual state of recovery. There’s always a persistent doubt -- a suspicion that there’s a fundamental flaw in me that no amount of therapy will fix -- and that doubt latched onto some random person’s conviction that Ed is a monster. It says, If Ed will always be a monster, what about you?
And I know that voice is wrong because it’s always been a liar. I know that it doesn’t matter that some portion of the fanbase turned on Ed in season two because that man isn’t real and he’s not me. I know that, for people who haven’t experienced something that was reflected in Ed’s arc, it might be difficult to sympathize with him (and with real life people who blow their lives up in their despair).
There will always be people who don’t understand or can’t empathize with that kind of desperate hopelessness, but there are also many, many people who get it… and some of those people were clearly in season two's writer’s room. Some of those people are in this fandom.
I guess what I’m getting at is this: I hope that, if you saw yourself in Ed’s early season two story, you know that you’re not a monster and you’re not a villain in someone else’s story, no matter what anyone else says. I hope you know that you’re worthy of love.
I hope you know you’re not alone.
#ofmd#me typing things#edward teach#cw suicide#tw suicide#look i just have some feelings okay#i love ed teach#i love being forced to like myself more because of ed#our flag means death#mental health
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i wanted to find some information to help my friend understand their own narcissism. Yeah. I forgot that everything I would see was ableist bs about "narcissistic parents" and "narcissism" in the form of meaning toxic abuser. Actually fucking done. I just wanted to help find answers for my fucking friend since they struggle with understanding themselves, but nope. I love that the ONLY resource is diagnostic materials. That's great. Until you wish to understand things fucking better.
I hate people that perpetuate this idea. I got through a whole vid about toxic ass men and shit only to use the term narcissistic to describe them after calling them delusional. I fucking hate this shit. Misogynistic men are not narcissistic!!! They're entitled and it is society that has allowed such entitlement where they don't HAVE to think of others. It is not a fucking narcissistic thing or narc abuse or shit like that!
I'm just fucking mad and done. I hate having barely any resources for help. I hate that I can't even help my friend esp since their narcissism is very different from mine. I hate that even finding official stuff and diagnostic material, you will also run into tons of shit about narcissistic abuse.
Fuck people that believe in narcissistic abuse. Fuck people that won't fucking listen when we be nice and try to tell them otherwise. Fuck people that insist upon using these mental health terms as fucking insults especially for right wingers and other shitty people. Fuck. You.
I give plenty of posts that try to nicely explain and help people fucking understand, but nah. I just. I fucking cant. I'm fucking angry and pissed lately especially some of the people I've run into on here just searching through the tags. I hate how many people use those terms because they're unaware and just see a fancy term come up. I hate that so many people act like "narcissistic abuse" is a real thing. It isn't. Mental disorders are not fucking linked to abuse. If other mentally ill people demonize us, it's the same fucking stigma that some people still believe in and used to say a lot for such other mental illnesses. I hate how fucking "narcissistic abuse" actually affects trauma victims. The ones that are kept mad, kept paranoid, kept scared, kept on edge, kept defensive. The ones that are narcissistic and womt even realize it. Cause I was fucking there when I fell into narcissistic abuse shit. And all it fucking did was make me more toxic and more defensive and worsened my fucking symptoms. Cause narcissistic abuse doesn't help with healing. Naming abusers as narcissists or narcissistic or the abuse as narcissistic does not help you fucking heal. It's just a term, a label, that has no actual standing other than to promote the same fucking demonized stereotypes every neurodivergent person has faced.
Even if you're one of the "better" ones or you claim "narcissist doesn't always mean narcissistic personality disorder" then here. There are people that will call us demons, say we are possessed. There are people that will insist it DOES mean the disorder. There are people that WILL consider us abusive for just saying we have NPD. There will be people comparing us to rapists and child sex offenders and murderers (that was fun to experience as someone that has experienced csa.) There will be people insisting NPD is NOT EVEN A REAL DISORDER. You cannot insist that these things don't happen and it doesn't mean it or whatever other bullshit there is. You cannot say you're listening only to get defensive back and ignore the points made.
I'm just. Fucking done. And I'm not here to fucking listen to people who hate narcissists or believe in narc abuse. You can fucking learn and listen or just fucking shut up and leave. Cause all the do is end up fighting and refusing to see the other side. And I have been there, I DID fall into that hole and called my parents narcissists. All it fucking did was make me angrier and more hateful. If your response from joining a community is to want to hurt narcissists (as articles often suggest) then that is NOT the kind of community you should want to be in.
I'm just fucking tired. Of YouTubers I watch talking as if they know so much only to demonize the fucking mentally ill and use disorders I fucking have and symptoms I experience as insults. Of everyone falling into the idea of believing narcissists are inherently toxic. Every mentally ill person is by that logic and maybe they are, cause we cannot fucking be healthy in an expected way, cause we will always have issues whether it's the more "accepted" ones people know of like depression or anxiety or ocd or whether it's the "scary" ones like schizophrenia, personality disorders, DID. I'm sick of this shit so yeah. I'm not here to listen to people that want to try to defend the idea of narc abuse.
That shit won't help you heal with your trauma. It just continues your fucking trauma responses.
I'm tired and fatigued and hungry so whatever. But I'm angry and I fucking hate that I feel like I have to "justify" being angry. I hate that I have to be terrified of the response due to me having also a bad history of internet harassment so I'm generally terrified of fucking posting anything, even if it's the silliest and dumbest shit.
Fucking leave narcissists alone. Fucking stop acting like we are some evil monsters. Just shut up about narc abuse.
#narcissistic#narcissist#narcissistic abuse#narc abuse#narcissism#surviving narcissism#narcissistic personality disorder#actually narcissistic#npd safe#npd traits#cluster b safe#narcissistic personality disorder atte#narcissists#npd#actually npd
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I think you don't really understand what it's like to be an adult that grew up with your bodily autonomy repeatedly violated and in a situation of extreme psychological abuse. Those types of things warp your experiences when you're an adult. Sam had his autonomy violated as an infant and it colors everything that happens to him after. He spends the rest of his life trying to regain his autonomy and it's understandable that there are times he would want to give-up because that's how that kind of abuse warps your brain. He should be able to be open about that without having his autonomy taken away.
1. you are making assumptions about my life and my experiences simply because i have not come to the same conclusion about something as you have. but you have no idea what experiences have shaped the way i approach this issue. and frankly, it's a little insulting that you think you do.
2. your experiences and your feelings about those experiences do not change what is actually happening to you. they influence how you react to what is happening to you. the fact that sam had his autonomy violated at any given point in time does not mean that it's happening again every single time something bad happens to him.
3. there's this concerning view that a lot of sam stans seem to have that because sam was a victim when he was a baby, he is now and forevermore a victim in perpetuity. he has no personhood and it's not possible for him to ever have any agency. he is tainted and he's going to spend the rest of his life repenting for something that happened to him. and you know, i kind of get it, because that is clearly how sam feels about the situation. but that doesn't make it the truth.
and if that's something you relate to, that's great! it's wonderful to find characters and stories that we see pieces of ourselves in. but i hope one day you're in a safe enough place, both mentally and materially, that you are able to accept that a.) you don't need to repent for the things that were done to you b.) no matter what's been done to you (or even what you've done), you are still a person deserving of all the love and respect that everyone else is and c.) your past traumas do not absolve you from your current and/or future choices.
4. it sounds like you're implying that sam should be able to follow through on suicidal thoughts and it's a violation of his autonomy that other people (usually dean) prevent that. this is a very complex issue in the real world where a lot of people feel like they can't be open about their struggles for fear of being locked up (in places that absolutely do violate your autonomy) and i sympathize with that. but we're talking about a fantasy show where sam's suicidal ideations were the effects of what was more or less a supernatural curse.
and even if that wasn't true, i still don't think letting someone die because they think it's the only way they can ever make up for the things that have happened to them (or even the things they've done) is... okay? people deserve the chance to get better, even when that seems like an impossibility, and not letting someone take that chance away from themselves is not a bad thing.
now, if you want to talk about the state of mental health care in the world, let's talk about that. but you're never going to convince me that letting someone give in to their most self-destructive impulses is how you respect their agency.
5. i just want to reiterate that nobody is saying that sam's autonomy isn't violated at various points throughout the show. the argument was that it's not violated any more than any of the other main characters, despite the fandom treating it as a sam-specific issue. that's literally it.
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This isn't at all my usual topic of interest, but I want to talk (ie. rant) about the idea of trauma and mental health.
I see the term "childhood trauma" a lot. Most often, the story goes like this: something Bad happened to you as a child, and now as an adult you're dealing with the repercussions of it in the form of poor mental health. And it's common. That's a really common string of events, and obviously one I have deep sympathy for.
There are a few things I want to probe at though. First of all, when we talk about 'childhood trauma' what do we actually mean? Because it certainly looks different depending on who you ask and who has experienced it. The most common thing - what seems to be the assumed thing - is a bad relationship with your parents. "I have childhood trauma" in many cases is assumed to equal "my parents abused me/were toxic/ weren't present etc." Which, obviously, can be the case. It's just not always the case. Childhood trauma can stem from any number of things; bullying, poverty, abuse/mistreatment from family members who aren't parents, witnessing a disturbing event, death of loved ones, living in an unsafe area, experiencing war/natural disasters/large-scale conflict, trouble with authority figures/adults not in the immediate family at all, severe illness or injury at a young age...the list goes on and on. It just frustrates me to see so many people jump to the conclusion that "childhood trauma" means "my parents were bad at parenting" and ONLY that.
Secondly, and this is an obvious one but...adults can be traumatized too. But I don't see "adult trauma" talked about nearly as often -- if you suffer from mental illness, the assumption (at least from what I've seen and experienced) is that something happened in your childhood to make you "that way", not that something happened last week.
The way I see the trauma -> mental illness pipeline being talked about, it's as if everyone is on the same page and talking about the same thing. It's not always the same thing.
Thirdly...sometimes mental illness just hits you. It just does. Sometimes it hits you when you're young and it's dealing with that which causes trauma responses, but sometimes you're a perfectly happy adult with very little in your life you'd consider traumatic, and then all of a sudden you start having Symptoms. People's brains are all hardwired differently, and sometimes people can develop mental illness without much warning or reason. It's not always one thing leading to another at all.
I also just...get frustrated about the implications that trauma is something that Happens To You. A Thing Happened. Someone did something To You.
That's not always true.
To get personal, here's my story. I was diagnosed with several mental/neurological conditions at a very young age (like, had just started kindergarten) and have spent the last 20 years figuring out ways to deal with that. I also had a severe spinal injury in high school.
I was lucky in some ways. I had loving supportive family and friends, and got some level of treatment. I wasn't bullied. But I've spent the majority of my life fighting off my own brain and my own body, which is...pretty exhausting. And has probably left me with some level of trauma, if you want to call it that. Even then though, I was already mentally ill. I've been mentally ill this whole time, and that fact hasn't made my mental health any better, but it also doesn't mean that the initial issue came from somewhere. It just happened.
What I know it *has* left me with is a lot of guilt. Because the narrative I see most often perpetuated re: mental health troubles is that someone else did this to you. Someone hurt you or wronged you. And that got me thinking...well, nobody hurt me. No person has ever done anything to me that's That Bad - or at least, not as bad as what my own brain was already doing. My brain just sucked, out of nowhere. My spine sucked, out of nowhere. I did this to me.
It's the nature of fault in these narratives, I think, that I could never relate to. If you have trauma, somebody else caused it, ergo somebody else is at fault. But the only fault I could ever come up with for my issues was my own.
So while I don't want to sound like the privileged minority going "but what about Meeee???" I do want to encourage people to reconsider what you see as trauma, to do less armchair diagnosing and wondering what could have "happened" to someone to "cause" their mental health issues. Your story is not universal. The most commonly presumed stories are not universal. Nobody's story is universal, which is why blind assumption helps nobody.
If you're suffering, if you have suffered, your suffering is valid. It doesn't have to have a clear starting point, or a clear transition from one form of suffering to another. Your mental health matters, even if it doesn't look the way people expect it to look.
I have no idea if I'll get hate for saying this, It's just been on my mind for a while and I wanted to get it out. Take care of yourselves.
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I recently learned something.
Those who have been oppressed often oppress others. Not always is the case but more often than not it seems to happen. There are those who want to be oppressed so they can claim victimhood and say they've been oppressed too so they can fit in with even more oppressed groups. When oppressed upon harshly and over long term it causes hatred, bigotry, racism etc. People who don't realize they went from being oppressed to the oppressor means they can still claim oppression and cruelty while also being oppressive and cruel to others. It's a nasty cycle way too many people perpetuate. I was oppressed by a cruel step father for 12 years, he was a pedophile and he forced horrible things upon me against my will and as time went on I developed serious anger problems. I was angry at everything and everyone from the system, to men, to the police, to my community I also hated myself. I hated so deeply that I needed anger management because I was concerned I'd become a liability to the safety and wellbeing of others, myself included. I never thought about how my oppression was causing me to oppress others, I never took into account that I had been a part of a cycle of violence and hate. However, after my step father was gone for good I finally had time to begin healing, taking years of therapy, going to anger management, keeping drugs qnd liquor at bay so I didn't begin addictive habits which were all around me as soon as I stepped outside my door I had accessed to everything from ocean, weed, meth, heroine, pills, free liquor. I lived surrounded by a couple of native reserves where my friends did drugs and drank just to pass the time. Boredom, fear, anger, oppression, these things lead towards a very dark path if you don't become aware of how it effects us. The oppressed feel helpless so they begin to oppress in order to feel powerful over others, and the cycle goes on and on. I witnessed it on reserves where my friends lived and they were miserable and bored most of the time, sneaking their parents liquor and drugs with ease. The accessibility of drugs and liquor is far too easy for minors. People learn disrespect and distrust because of begin oppressed. My step dads mother oppressed him, she had bipolar and borderline personality disorder, she refused medication for a long time because she was in denial and he didn't know he had inherited her mental health issues until many years after and it was far too late by then the damage had been done. His mental illness had nothing to do with him being a pedo though that was all on him but his outbursts of rage, verbal, mental and physical abuse had taken its toll on me and my mom. In anycase I realized I don't want to be an oppressor. I don't want to feel this hate qnd contempt for everyone. No one did anything to me but in my mind once long ago I blamed everyone else but didn't take into account my own oppressive thoughts. I did not wish to be like that so it took over 10 years of work on myself to overcome toxic habits and intrusive thoughts. Don't get me wrong I still get intrusive thoughts but now I stop to analyze those thoughts and question them. No longer a slave to my mind, I seek to only coexist as best I can with the world no, no more buzzing in my head to go out and cause trouble I'm freeeee. I take time for myself when I need it and I've learned to enjoy being on my own instead of feeling alone and unhappy when I'm by myself, I'm finally at peace and became my own best friend, I went from hating myself to loving myself (not in a narcissistic way though) but i've learned to accept I can't control everything, I can't control what others do, I can't control what others think or feel about me, I can't control society. I had to learn to let go and accept it is what it is, time to move on. All praise be to God for helping me through the darkest days of my life. I used to hate so deeply man...it felt like it was becoming a part of my DNA lol. Anyway that's all I had to say, thank you for reading. Have a good day. 💖
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in response to "not allowed to name your abuse in polite company" anon
wow okay yeah well here we go. I'm a psychology major, and have been studying psychology for years, and it drives me mental how easily people eat up this Bad Person Disease wank.
I was raised in an abusive environment myself and it took me over two decades to escape. In that in an effort to show support multiple friends went ham on the armchair diagnosing of my abusers, what with their NPD labels and their BPD speculations... mostly it was cluster B labels.
Fast forward to when I'm finally in therapy and dealing with my trauma and guess what. My therapist notices that I'm really struggling with xyz issues and diagnoses me with the Dreaded Bad Person Disease! Womp womp. As it turns out, diagnoses exist to Help the Person the Diagnosis Belongs To, NOT as a handy tool for people to label people they don't like. Whodafuckin thunk.
There is a damn good reason why it is inadvisable to go around slapping labels onto other people when you're not their therapist. Mostly it's because no matter how close you are to that person, even if you live with them, you are not them! You do not live in their head! So unless you are a trained professional that that person came to, voluntarily, seeking help, you can't actually know if that person has xyz mental health issue! You can't just slap the NPD or BPD or whatever label you want on all the bad people you meet and then decide that Everyone With This Label Must Be an Asshole Because I Have Decided That Every Asshole I Meet Belongs to This Label that's not! how any! of this! works!
It's ableist because it makes it very hard for people who do have this disorder, whose lives are negatively affected by this disorder, to seek help. Backtracking to me sitting with my therapist first processing that Oh Fuck Does This Mean I'm a Monster? That fucking sucked. I hated myself, I felt that it was hopeless, I was terrified that if people found out they'd shun me, or try to harm me.
What also sucks? I'm not a bad person! Shitty things happened to me in the past that altered my brain chemistry and now makes it extremely difficult to process the world in a healthy way. How is that my fault? I have no control over that, all I can do is control my actions and learn to reframe my thoughts. Yes, it's to protect others from potentially harmful behaviour on my part, but also it's to protect me from myself, from this overwhelming feeling of despair and shame and frustration and anger, at the world, at others, at myself for being angry in the first place- because my god, that anger, it is exhausting, especially when you know that what you feel, how you see the world, is "wrong" and "bad". After a while it's hard not to conflate "wrong" thoughts with just... being wrong.
And on top of all that internal struggle I still need to worry about whether or not I'll receive proper support, both from my friends and also from medical professionals...That is what this "narcissistic abuse" fuckery does and that is why it is disgusting for victims- fellow victims! to go about perpetuating this term. Everyone's a mental health advocate until it comes to us with the "ugly" mental health issues. Then it's dead silence.
I get it. OK? I was also an abuse victim. I've had some truly horrible and disgusting things done to me that will probably keep me in therapy for the rest of my life. It's so comforting, isn't it, to be able to draw that line in the sand and say I am Here and you are There, the reason why you hurt me is because you are a monster, there is no way I could ever be you. We are nothing alike.
But guess what? That's not true. There's no line! Tell me now, truly. What is the difference between "narcissistic abuse" and "just regular abuse"? It's not the self-centeredness. Abusers are self-centered, that's what makes them abusers. It's not the lack of compassion. Again, lack of compassion is what makes abusers what they are. What, then? The lying, the gaslighting, the threats? All of it is abuse. There is nothing- no significant, distinguishable factor that warrants the specification of "narcissistic abuse".
To be frank, I am tired- so very tired. of people making excuses for abusers. because that is all that they are- excuses. Abusers are not monsters, nor demons, not the boogeymen that hunt in the night. They are human, same as the rest of us, and they choose to harm when they could have sought help, redirected their pain and anger, done anything else. So hold abusers accountable for their actions, their choices, and leave us struggling with trauma and mental illness out of it. For fuck's sake.
You do not need a special fancy label to highlight how awful your trauma was. You certainly do not need to scapegoat a whole group of mentally ill people in order to achieve the support and healing that you deserve. The only thing that separates Those Who Abuse and Those Who Do Not Abuse is a Choice. Kindness and Cruelty, neither one is inherent. It. is. a. choice.
God. I'm tired.
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What do you think of Bruce as a father? I understand that he’s not perfect, but I’m incredibly uncomfortable with the way he’s written as a parent. A lot of reproachful, unkind behavior gets brushed aside as “that’s just the way he is” or “he was under a lot of stress”. I don’t know, I wish the writers would take a lot more care in writing this part of him because it honestly makes me somewhat dislike his character as a whole 😔
Abuse discussion content warning below.
I have a lot of contradictory feelings towards Bruce. I think he loves his kids more than anything. I think he loves Dick more than anything. I think he has moments where he goes above and beyond the duty of any parent for their child. I think his reasoning for helping his kids is genuinely alturistic.
I also think Bruce is abusive, and I don't think it's one off tone deaf writers 'getting it wrong'. It's a consistent part of his character and goes back decades. And just as in real life, it's hard to reconcile the idea of a parent loving their child whilst also being abusive. It's not an easy thing to write about, so if I'm crass here, or get things wrong, I am sorry.
But I think the best example I can give is that Lemire's Robin and Batman is my favourite depiction of Bruce and Dick's relationship in years. It unequivocally writes that Bruce: A) Loves Dick very much. B) Is abusive. I'm very grateful for the fact that the book never side steps this fact.
I don't know. There's a lot of uncomfortable and difficult to explain things regarding Bruce's behaviour. It's all well and good to say the abuse stems from ptsd and trauma but then, is that just stigmatising mental illness, which is something that Bat comics (or superhero comics in general) do all the time? Do we really want to perpetuate that? And I'm not sure about the answers to any of that! I think the writers intent matters in these cases, and the thing that kills me is that there is no intent. Most of his writers genuinely have no clue what they've done, creating such a realistic cyclical depiction of an abusive parent. And a lot of the time, I really don't know how to feel about it all.
And yeah sure there's a lot of contradictions in his approach to his kids, but things that crop up again and again is denying them agency, unrealistic expecations, and a resulting coldness for when they fail to match them. I have seen, and I agree I think, that the very concept of Robin is abuse, and no not in the vigilante dodging bullets way, but in the Fear needs Hope Batman needs a Robin way. Placing the emotional stability of an adult as a responsibility of a child.
It's not just the hitting - of which there is plenty over the last fifty years to see - its the lack of communication, the financial control he exerts, the rejection and withdrawl of affection based on the kids having to hit impossible targets, the lying and manipulation... it goes on and on. Bruce ticks every box when it comes to parenting his kids. I don't blame people for wanting to scrub it, and they will have very sympathetic reasons for doing so. I get a little antsy however as that doesn't mean the actions and words are actually gone. Bruce smacking Tim was awful. I've seen arguments about its ooc nature and how it should be ignored and forgotten etc... but Bruce still hit Tim. I can open a book and look at it right now. Ignoring it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
I don't mind reading or writing fics where Bruce is decidedly not abusive, I do it all the time certainly, but in canon, I think the whole #NotMyBruce is well intentioned but also a bit dangerous. People seeing their own abuse reflected back at them, and how in many ways that can actually be quite affirming, only to have someone come along and be like 'that's not the real him' or whatever long essays they write about BtAS (which... he's still abusive in that I'm sorry but he is) being the 'their' Batman doesn't really help.
Abuse survivors don't want to read an iteration of such things versus those who in one way or another take comfort from it. The needs of one don't cancel out the needs of the other? I hope that makes sense. It's a very complicated thing to try and put into words. Many blogs have written about it much better than I.
I just think, the abuse is still there on the page, saying it 'doesn't count' because it was ooc (it's not) doesn't make it go away, and I think its dangerous to ignore it. I think it's important to draw a distinction between looking at what is shown on the page, and how that fits into a pattern of other instances, versus what you want Bruce to be, and how there may be contradictions about the abuse portrayed in other pages.
#dc#ask and i'll babble#abuse cw#this is why I've gotten so angry at wfa in recent months in case its not clear#and why i stopped reading it a while ago#batfam meta
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are you trans-detrans solidarity stances biased in one direction or another? I imagnie most anyone that brands themself as that title will understandably prioritize pro-transition stances. so I am skeptical someone would actually take on a neutral position that benefits any kind of detransitioner.
Hi, anon. Thank you for your concern. If this post doesn't engage with your question on the axes you were trying to ask about, please re-send a clearer question. I obviously can't tell if my stances are biased, so I'll summarize some of them here and give you some backstory.
I actually am kind of a detransitioner. I'm an AFAB/natal female who used to have a masculine nonbinary identity and stopped, and I still have some unwanted physical effects from having been on testosterone. I just also have a social circle full of trans people, really dislike cishumanism, and am perpetually frustrated with radfems, which is why I put stuff like "highly masculine right-brain systems thinker disconnected from Nature" in my tumblr bio.
(I never took exogenous testosterone, my body was like "hey, want to have a neckbeard and chest hair and horrible acne and a teenage-boy-tier sex drive and a face that people sometimes gender as male if paired with a t-shirt and short hair? no need to go to a doctor, I've got that covered". Now I take spironolactone, which I would recommend with caveats. I spent some time in detransition-oriented social groups, but got frustrated with them for what I saw as denying the realities of biomedical transition and having a cruel attitude towards some transgender women I was and am friends with. Discussing dysphoria with transgender women led me to start antiandrogens, which have done infinitely more for my mental health than any radfem has.)
Some policies I think benefit both groups include:
Not making a big deal about people having nonstandard presentations. If we want to avoid people feeling excess time pressure to transition, and be nice to people who temporarily took hormones they didn't want, we need to fuss less over lasting signs of nonstandard hormones, like breast development and hair pattern changes. Furthermore, if we want youth exploring their gender identities to not feel pressure to take hormones/bind/etc, we need to avoid making fun of youth who want to change their names and pronouns without significant physical changes.
Stop requiring people to give pronouns. Trans people mostly seem to not like it and detrans people seem to mostly not like it. It seems to be by and for DEI teams or something.
Doing more research into long-term health outcomes for people who take or have taken cross-sex hormones. Though this is still IIRC better studied than long-term puberty blocker usage! It is genuinely plausible to me that if a child or teenager wants medication for transition stuff, it's safer for them to be on cross-sex HRT than it is for them to be on puberty blockers.
Make checking sex hormone levels a standard diagnostic for miserable teenagers who hate their appearances. Sometimes these are screwy in ways which cause non-transgender dysphoria. At least in the case of AFABs, spending a month trying spiro probably won't set back their goals if they later turn out to benefit from exogenous androgens.
Policies which are less specific to the case of transgender people and detransitioners below the cut.
In general try to reduce child abuse, especially gendered child abuse, and try to avoid making kids do unpleasant unnecessary stuff, especially if it's gendered. Also, don't judge parents for having gender non-conforming kids.
Build more housing to lower housing costs so it's easier for adults to avoid living with their parents. Bad parents can be a huge stressor.
Full transhumanism now:
Look into synthesizing gametes from regular cells. Sometimes people care about being able to have biokids. If you've had your ovaries removed right now, that's a huge pain.
Solve artificial uteri. The root of sex-based oppression is, well, biological sex, which is rooted in disparate parental investment strategies. Artificial uteri are a step in making it more possible to equalize the costs child production puts on parents.
In general making it easy to change one's body reversibly. Right now that's a pain.
Blah blah full biological immortality and uploading and cognitive enhancements and stuff. Because those are nice things.
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As a songwriter I'm not in the WGA but most of my friends are Hollywood-based writers, performers, and set people, so I want to put some thoughts down. I'm not going to quote facts and figures because I don't know them, and there are people smarter than me who are better at that. I'm going to do what I can, which is to take emotional stock of what I've seen.
Here's what's happened over the last ten years. I have a hundred brilliant friends who I've seen do beautiful work. They work for free in darkened rooms, running on the hope that someday, someone will allow them to show the world what they've done. They go to their day jobs and think about the inner worlds of their coworkers, picking up the little bits of joy they see around them and filing them away to share with others later.
They're burned out. Work is scarce. It pays less and less. Rent is expensive. Food is expensive. They take every job they're offered. They spend weeks doing rewrites on things that no longer remotely resemble those little bits of joy they've collected so carefully.
Everyone tells them they're living the dream. They should be grateful to be working at all, right? What a privilege! It's the thing all abusive bosses say before they tell them to pull another unpaid all-nighter. They're burning the candle at both ends. They don't have time for the ideas that used to make their eyes sparkle.
I know they're still in there somewhere. I try to check in on them. I ask them what their dreams are. Some still cling to them. Some can't remember. They're strapped to a perpetual motion machine. People used to get time to breathe. Writers need time to mentally process things because that's how they make things emotionally impactful.
I know that sounds entitled. "I dont get a break from work - why should they get to sit around?"
I wish I could show everyone who isn't in Hollywood just a fraction of the incredible things I've seen that have never made it past a black box theater. Trust me - you want these people to be comfortable, because when they are given time, they come alive. You would LOVE their work. And they want to give it to you. They want to give you all those little bits of joy. That's what they do when they're given time to process things.
They can't do it because this system chews them up and spits them out. They want to make things that are worthy of your time. Let them.
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Bfmfjfnfj for REAL like. I think part of it is bc Shiv took a really huge blow with Logan's death so everyone's like how can Tom be an asshole now of all times. But here's the thing. Her dad dying doesn't erase the shit she put Tom through, which is more than just cheating on him (already horrible), and it irks me so much that they downplay Shiv's abuse towards him. Like yes he's an asshole and selfish, but you don't need to pretend like Shiv has done nothing wrong to justify your anger. Like. Shiv's abuse is so layered and constant especially during the first season, practically every scene between the two she's dismissive and mocking with him. And it's not like we're saying Tom isn't equally fucked up in how he behaves with her especially in how he's so pushy about getting her pregnant. And that's the thing, they're both horrible towards each other and we don't need to water these characters down to Victim Woman and Evil Man to enjoy them. Please stop!!!! Also I feel like people jump to Shiv's defense over made up arguments from made up people??? At least here on tumblr I've never seen the "tomgregs who hate Shiv" everyone's always whining about. At most I see posts saying she's not perfect and then people complaining about sexism in fandom LOL. Also also, last ep with the ear flick scene made a lot of people uncomfortable and rightfully so imo, it was meant to, but the virtue signaling is getting a bit too much gjmdjdk and equating an ear flick with domestic violence is a BIT fucked up in my opinion.
In any case I hope the writers aren't planning on escalating this and that it was meant to read as Tom just reacting to Shiv not backing off, bc if they take the Tom-Logan parallels to the extreme I might have to check out lol. I'm scared bc they have shown us Tom's violent side with Greg, and with the dynamics shifting... Idk.
This is going to get me cancelled for sure but fuck it, right?
I like Shiv, but only when she is without Tom? They are just fucking terrible with each other. Shiv uses her sexuality as a weapon, or perhaps a tool to hurt Tom. Perpetually. With cheating, with the open marriage, and trying tom to participate in it, etc., in early season one and late season three by hurting him during sex the first physically, the other mentally. I don’t think it as refreshing and ground-breaking or even entertaining as some fans, but hey, to each their own, tomgreg also has mental and physical abuse in there, to some extent.
I don’t want to defend Tom in anyway, because you are right, he is no saint, but we talk used (before season 4) talk about the pyramid of abuse in succ, where Logan’s abuse of his children was getting passed on to other people via his children, and just how fucked up that was, and how this needs to change, why are we suddenly so against Tom calling Shiv out on her insecurities and pointing out he has been hurt by Shiv? It’s true? Yes, she has just lost her father, but you are right, their issues started way before that.
To me, the ear flick was did not equal to domestic abuse but stayed on the same level of childishness as Shiv relentlessly trying to step on his shoes because she was feeling bad for herself. Tom deciding to take direct action against the source instead of this usual move of weathering through abuse and then taking it out on Greg in most insane ways imaginable is, at least to me, quite interesting. We don’t talk about it and what it might mean enough.
The fandom seeing any critique directed at a female character and saying it borders on fans being sexist is nothing new, but it is worrying here, where, textually, the point of this character is to be flawed and fucked up? We joke about them all being our poor little meow meows but surely critical thinking has not been lost along the way? The whole point of this show is to question how much of the kid’s actions can be blamed on Logan, and how much of it is the kid’s fault. If we decided everything is Logan’s fault, then the kids are nothing but his reflections, his agency in the world, with no autonomy, all of their actions can be traced back to Logan.
I am not sure I enjoy this season at all, which is super odd, because we are now halfway done? The writers did say we will get to find out if tomshiv were ever anything real in the second art of the season, which is good because my POV on this changes daily. Yeah, Tom used his relationship with Shiv to breeze through the ranks, but he also seemed genuinely in love and therefore hurt by Shiv’s actions too? Yes, Shiv has been historically abusive, cold, and dismissive, but she seems to care about Tom from time to time. But is it enough? Idk.
#thank you#anonymous#answered#i am not tagging it as anything else#if you read it and dont like it just block me please
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ptsd in romantic relationships 12/18/23
this is not fair to you and i apologize. there is nothing you have done to me as far as i've known. this weight coming onto you is not what you deserve. i should be sorry that i am the one you love*. you don't even know it! you have no clue and as much as i'd love for it to stay that way i don't know if i can keep hiding these panic attacks. but how am i meant to tell you. it's not a good thing and i'm meant to be good. i am as good as i can be because you picked me an made me yours. you gave me something i've been searching for for years and i have to nerve to feel any sort of way? it's been a very long time since i've been in therapy. i think that you can infer from some things. you aren't dumb, in fact you're a capricorn. with a cancer moon. god you are great.
i remember when we were in the car and you said you've never really had any sort of real emotional turmoil. you've never thought of suicide. never been abused to a degree that was severe. that is so nice. i was so grateful that you never had to experience something like that. you don't have any sort of weight on you. then immediately after i thought to myself. i have thought of it. there were days, weeks, months, years where it's all i thought of. more times than i'd like to admit that i've tried and for some reason unbeknownst to me all failed. all of them failed for me to come to you like a battered puppy inside.
you don't know what happened to me. how they hit me and what i was forced to take and how i was manipulated. i was meant to feel like i wasn't a person. that is what love is to me. i am scared everyday that you are going to do the same and that is not fair to you. you are nice to me. such a great partner. how could i ever think that way. i feel so horrible about myself when you say something stupid and i think about how you could be trying to manipulate me or trying to do something to me. when we got high over the phone and u joked about gaslighting i laughed it off but i almost went into a panicked frenzy.
i don't deserve you. i can't pretend like i am not who i am. you don't know me at heart and i don't even know if i can tell you. how is this gonna work. you don't get it and i don't want you to. no one has ever really loved me without repercussions to my psyche. i have scars on my body from everyone i've ever loved, whether self inflicted, inflicted by them, or mental. im so tired. i dont deserve you i should kill myself. you don't deserve a girlfriend like me. you deserve a girl that is okay mentally, no attempts under her belt, a normal girl. so you guys can love each other and you don't have to deal with this. i don't even want to deal with it. i don't want to tell you but i think after we break up i may do it. i got the love i've been longing for and i've been so tired of keeping going. you don't deserve a dead girlfriend. maybe i'll do it a few years after we break up so u don't think its your fault. if anything its the opposite. you're delaying the ineviatable by being such a good person.
i haven't been good at all. i'm a bad person. i can say that the world molded me this way but that is an excuse i chose not to take. there is something wrong with me in the soul after being thrown around the way i have. you don't deserve someone like me. if i had a gun i'd do it right now and leave you a long letter about how you were such a great boyfriend and how you helped me through what i'd never tell you about and all the things of that sort. i think that i was meant to perpetually be abused so that i can take all i can possibly take and then reach a breaking point where my method of choice actually goes through. i'm sorry that i am me.
gray text: ohh, guessing u don’t wanna talk about it
blue text: i don't want it to seem like i don't tell you why i feel some ways sometimes because of anything against you. there is just a good amount of things you don't know ab yet and eventually you'll know ab it all but i just get anxious that you won't look at me the same plus i don't wanna like burden u with this stuff i can deal w myself. i trust you a lot and rlly do appreciate you very much.
im so sorry that we met and you liked me.
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If I were supreme overlord of DC I'd write a limited series on an "alternative earth" that started with anon's idea of Jason’s very bad no good mental slideshow of horrors, continued with your response of "batboys discuss their traumas & Bruce has a moment of "oh God what have I done??"" And ends with Bruce trying to retire the cowl & turn himself into GCPD as a serial child abuser because "he can't trust himself because he's lived long enough to become the very thing he's fighting against" but when he goes to tell the JL why exactly he's leaving Ollie beats the shit out of him and tells him that he doesn't deserve to give up, that all he's doing is failing his kids once again, and what he needs to do is try and be better, and respect their decisions etc. etc. Which ends in him confronting his kids, injecting himself with a truth serum (because he's still perpetually incapable of communicating with them), telling them that he loves them, they're not failures, he's failed them, he's sorry, etc. etc. And them having responses that vary from "I know you were trying to deal with your traumas and while you could have done a better job, I appreciate you acknowledging it now. I forgive you & you're still my dad." To "You fucked me up beyond repair, I'll never be the same, but for some god forsaken reason I still love you dad." To "Your traumas are no excuse for the way you've treated us. I don't think I can ever see you as my dad again, but maybe we can work towards being friends/colleagues/allies." And everything in between. That way we get acknowledgement of his sometimes shitty behavior while facing no long-term consequences to the Batman titles, it's an alt-earth story so others can brush it off, and we have a reason to return to the softer, more caring Batman we all know and love.
he can't trust himself because he's lived long enough to become the very thing he's fighting against
Anon…
Nonny (if I may)…
You either…*looks around*
You either die a hero…*nobody can stop me*
You either die a hero OR *I’ve immediately gone mad with power*
YOU EITHER DIE A HERO OR LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE YOURSELF BECOME THE VILLAIN!!!!!
I HAD TO.
But anyway, see, this is the sort of out-of-continuity storyline that would justify the existence of “Black Label,” to me.
DC wants to do “Mature” stories…but the level of maturity is like “what if we showed Batman’s dick???” or idk whatever was going on in Three Jokers that meant it had to be published on Black Label. (Gore? Maybe??? Idk.)
And like…it doesn’t have to be “A Very Special Episode”! You could have the whole thing wrapped up in a mystery plot, or start in medias res with Bruce in Batjail or something…maybe Jason is in a Magical Coma and they go to get him out and, tah-dah! Sad stuff! And then mystery of Who Put Jason In A Coma And Why collides with Bruce Wayne Needs Some Personal Accountability.
(And thematically, the true mystery the batkids are trying to solve is their own lived experiences.)
Let’s throw Hugo Strange at them. He likes the mind games. (The phrase “sticky and hot” rolls through my mind like Thunder…uncontrollable. Impossible to contain.)
(iykyk.)
ANYWAY, the point is, I approve your Supreme Overlord plan, and I would like to be the High Chancellor of Clone Babies, and I would like DC to branch out more when it comes to what they can do with alternate lines/continuities/what have you.
(Okay and for my own angst-love, since I’m brainstorming for this story that doesn’t actually exist, Jason breaks Bruce out of Batjail because they NEED him out there…but as Jay and Bruce are out having a magical mystery tour it becomes clear that it’s less about “the case” needing Bruce and more about Jason needing his coping mechanisms reinforced, and eventually Bruce is like “oh…oh no…I see what’s happening here.”)
#ask answered#cw abuse#yes this is your high chancellor of clone babies speaking#jason todd#brainstorming about plotlines that won’t ever exist
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