#and most of my anger is being mad at traumatic stuff that has been going on since birth. or years ago

[anpanman95]

God DO I have things to say about this one here…

CONTROVERSIAL REVIEW AHEAD

Last Twilight: why Day’s character is a major RED FLAG 🚩🚩🚩

DISCLAIMER: I do not have anything against him as an actor. He’s a beautiful sweet talented cutie pie that is doing such an amazing job it causes me to hate the motherfluffing guts of this character.

To make this easier I’ve broken down this to five points.

Day’s personality sucks: first of all, he is a rich, spoiled child (I hope all of us agree on this one) who’s clearly full of himself, and only cares about himself. This is demonstrated in several ways, but the most blatant one is in how he believes that his tragedy is the worst possible scenario anyone could be in, and fails to have a single ounce of empathy for anyone around him unless, of course, it has to do something with him. Yes. What happened to him was horrific, and traumatizing, but he is not the only human being in the world who has problems. Which brings me to my next point.

Having a disability does not give you the right to be an asshole. “Oh but every person deals with their own stuff differently” Honey, no. The whole point is that having a disability does not make you any less than any other human being. Question: Doesn’t Day want for people to stop feeling pity for him? to not treat him differently?. Well guess what darling: that implies you also still have to be and function like a decent person. Yes, again, I’m very sorry about what he has to go through, which is a horrible and unexpected experience, and I could never imagine what that’s like, but literally no one in his life wished this upon him. He acts as if everyone around him is to be blamed for what happened.

Spoiled part 2: He has a roof over his head. A fancy one might I add. He lives comfortably. He has healthy, unlimited food, done by a professional chef, might I add AGAIN, and he does not appreciate his family and what they do for him, not even once. Does he not understand that his life could be much, much worse? I’m not saying he can’t be angry or depressed or deal with his trauma however he needs to be able to heal, but there’s a difference that he doesn’t seem to understand: being angry at a situation that is out of anyone’s control, and being angry or directing that anger to people who just want to help. Which brings me to my last two points:

Day’s crappy behavior towards his family: Lets start with the mother. She is, of course somewhat at fault for what Day has to go through. But only because she is being unreasonably overprotective, something that could have been solved anyway without Day being an absolute prick about it. (Also pick one of your children to give all your love and attention to and abandon the other? what is wrong with you). Now to his brother Night. Oh God. I don’t think you understand how angry I was when Day said “I forgive you for everything”. Bitch what the f? Forgive Night? for treating him like absolute garbage, as if he had never been your own brother? Like he planned the whole fiasco? He gets mad after the accident because his brother TRIES TO CHANGE for the BETTER. And accuses him from TRYING TO STEAL THE GOOD SON TITLE FROM HIM??! Be for real bitch. This circles back to point one: He only cares about himself. Night has been traumatized almost as much as Day because of the accident. It is obvious he blames himself and probably will never forgive himself fully for what happened. On top of that he gets an awful mother and brother? Nah. Count me out. I would have resigned from that family and go live with beautiful sweet Porjai to a small village and never be contacted by those people again.

Mhok: Oh dear. Oh dear. He is literally the greenest of green flags out there. Sure. He’s a little volatile. Sure, he has done violent things. But he would have NEVER hurt Day or any of their friends/family. My boy was just trying to do his job, cause, mind you, HE HAS NO MONEY OR FAMILY TO SUPPORT HIM LIKE YOU DO, DAY. The money and family you disrespect every single day. And what the f with telling him what to do with his life? Who the f do you think you are? Mr. Righteous? Mr. Perfect? More like Mr. Red Flag 101. Day basically broke Mhok’s heart because Mhok didn’t want to be away from him. So, first of all, I don’t believe for a second Mhok’s intentions were out of pity. Maybe they came from a place of WORRY and a little bit out of infatuation because he liked him so much and didn’t want to be away from him. But never pity. EVEN SO. IF Mhok felt “pity” for Day, the correct thing to do, as two fluffing functioning adults, is to TALK. Why did you have to go and tell him all this horrible things just so he’d leave? Why not tell him you’re proud of him, and ENCOURAGE HIM to take the job, ENSURE that it’ll work out between you? But nooooo, Mr. Red Flag had to go and break his heart cause he lacks basic decency and human empathy, only for Mhok, bless his heart, to come back after three years AND FOR SOME REASON, still manage to be in love with this awful person. And he tells him no? Break his heart all over again only for Mhok to have enough emotional intelligence for the both of them to actually come back after YOU GAVE UP ON SEARCHING FOR HIM AT THE AIRPORT LIKE A WEAK MEDIOCRE BI— ugh. If I were Mhok I’d gone and kicked his sorry ass and married a handsome Hawaiian.

Okay.

Also Day only coming to his senses after his mother tells him THE MOST OBVIOUS THING THERE IS.

“Oh Mother what was that? Loving means taking risks? It’s all about trust? and communication? Oh my, that would have never crossed my mind because I am such an idiot. Thank you mom I’ll go look for the love of my life now because you told me so”

like seriously what is up with these boys and their mommy issues? I swear the exact same thing happened in Hidden Agenda. Bro.

I love P’Aof, and his work. Loved Bad Buddy, loved Moonlight Chicken. I had super high expectations of this and, overall, the show is good. But I simply did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would, and it’s all because I couldn’t sympathize with one of the main characters.

In conclusion:

Fluff you Day, you do not deserve Mhok. sorry p’Aof I love you and will continue to support you until the very end.

oof. I needed to rant this out. don’t yell at me please I cry easily.

peace out!

#last twlight the series #bl series #thai bl series #thaibl #thailand #thai bl #thai bl drama #thai drama #thai series #mhokday #mhok x day #mhok last twilight #im very sorry about this but It needed to be said #metapost #meta post #my meta #my writing #last twilight

[distort-opia]

first of all I wanted to say that I really like reading your takes on batman and I have throughoutly enjoyed reading your fics. i wanted to ask what you think would make bruce permanently retire from his batman persona and his crimefighting? or do you think it’s more of a ‚my retirement is death‘ situation?

Thank you for the ask, and I'm glad you've enjoyed reading my stuff! <3

I do think the most realistic take is 'I'll retire when I'm dead', though Batman stories tend to have various alternate takes on the subject. Most recently, in Batman/Catwoman, Bruce married Selina and had a kid and died peacefully at an old age -- but he still trained Helena and they fought crime as a family. Earth-2 Batman did end up retiring for a while and working in police (once again married to Selina and having a daughter called Helena), but then he still went back to the cape and cowl when provoked, and died in it. The Dark Knight Returns Batman retired too when Joker killed Robin, but Miller’s Bruce famously went back to being Batman when he felt the call again. In Batman Beyond Bruce also retires when he nearly shoots someone and feels that he’s not worthy of the Bat anymore, but seeing as he’s old and alone and latches onto the chance to continue his legacy via Terry McGinnis, I wouldn’t call that a retired Bruce either.

Actually, there’s way more alternate Universes in which Bruce dies in the line of duty and someone else becomes Batman, or Universes in which he kills Joker and goes dark. (Batman Who Laughs is just the most spectacular version of it, not the only one.) And if that’s not telling enough, even the stories that have Bruce retiring don’t have him fully let go of Batman. Going by the stories we’ve had in the past... the only thing to have Bruce more consistently retire the crimefighting is someone directly dying because of him. If he broke the Vow, he might indeed feel unworthy of the cowl, but it’d have to be something quite extreme. After all, plenty of Robins have died, but it’s not stopping Bruce from currently Batmanning. Also, he’s killed people in other Universes, and it didn’t make him give up -- rather, it turned him into a villain or into a much more brutal vigilante. Hell, in King’s run, Thomas Wayne himself tries to traumatize Bruce into giving up being Batman and it doesn’t work.

So... I do think Batman Beyond had the right idea? The first way in which he’d retire for good is if he violated the very foundations of the Bat’s existence. If he was forced into a situation where he became like the man who killed his parents; superstitious and cowardly. This way would either lead to Bruce dying old and alone, or him... well, killing himself in the absence of a purpose. However, then there’s the hypothetical retirement scenario where he does it because he came to terms with his grief over his parents. The Batman persona is fuelled by it, and Bruce has articulated more than once that he’s consciously making the choice not to let go. So, if some extraordinary person/circumstance got him to genuinely confront his grief and his anger, if he managed to deal with his trauma... that might end ‘Batman’, and Bruce might not die unhappy and alone. (So maybe if someone brought his parents back to life and dumped them on his doorstep? Hah. That’d be interesting for Bruce to deal with. Basically how Ra’s threatened to do it in JLA: Tower of Babel, but... better. And conceivably without his parents having Pit madness.)

To be honest, though, I don’t think the current Bruce has any realistic chances of ever letting go. He’s been Batman for too long. He’s had multiple attempts to be happier, to perhaps try to be Bruce Wayne and Batman at the same time, but not only did these fail -- they failed because he self-sabotaged. He’s deeply self-destructive and intentionally fuelling himself with anger and misery, because he can’t see any other version of himself than one who’s Batman, so... myeah. At the end of the day, I’m still going with ‘I’ll retire when I’m dead’.

#in other words Bruce is Sisyphus #his mission is impossible to fulfill by its very nature #so he can't ever stop #asks #batman #bruce wayne #batman meta #bruce wayne meta #suicide mention #my meta

[mayalaen]

i’m sorry for pushing you guys away

My family has had A LOT of counseling over the years, but I’ve had very little because counselors don’t seem to know what to do with schizophrenics and they end up doing weird shit to me.

Recently my brain has decided that the childhood experiences I thought weren’t a big deal were actually pretty traumatic, and my brain wouldn’t let me stuff it down anymore. Damn, but I was so good at stuffing that I didn’t even realize I had anger issues!

Apparently I have A SHIT-TON of anger issues 😲

However, in the process of going through counseling, my mom and I finally have a second label for the 4 bipolar people in my family who have caused me the most trauma.

They’re not JUST bipolar. They’re also Malignant Narcissists. Surprise! (Generations of abuse+substance use+mental issues breeds these fuckers if you didn’t know)

It’s kinda nice to have a label for them because now we can learn how better to deal with them, and the tips we’ve learned so far have worked GREAT!!

The BAD NEWS is that they’ve all carried a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder for years, so I assumed all the toxic manipulative shit was due to being bipolar. Because that’s what I was told! (I did think it was odd that most of their behavior wasn’t included on the symptoms of bipolar disorder lists on websites and in psych books)

Because of that, I’ve put distance between myself and bipolar people I start to become friends with as soon as I realize they’re bipolar or have mood issues.

The reason I’m posting about this here is because I’ve been pushing away some really great people who are simply bipolar, thinking they were just being nice to me until we got close and then they’d unleash the manipulative toxicity on me.

I can’t tell you how hurt and angry this it makes me that my family’s behavior fucked up my friendships, but I’m also thankful for the thick skin they’ve given me.

There’s a few people I could name, but I don’t want to out them if they haven’t told anyone else they’re bipolar, but if you see this and you’ve tried to be friends with me and you’re bipolar or even have the barest hints of mood swings, this is for you.

I AM SO SORRY 😭

I really liked being with you. You’re fun and easy to talk to. You’ve never actually hurt me, but I was protecting myself.

As you can imagine, this has been super upsetting, and it’s part of the reason I haven’t been around much.

I went through a grieving period for all the people I could’ve been friends with over the years and quite a number of fuckbuddies and even a couple relationships that could’ve been long-term.

It’s not completely my family’s fault -- counselors told us what they were and missed the malignant narcissism diagnosis -- but I’m in the anger stage of this whole process, and I’m really fucking mad and resentful. I haven’t even been able to look my father in the eye for months now.

Good thing he’s so narcissistic that he hasn’t noticed or cared otherwise I would’ve had to talk to him about it 🤣

One of the things I really enjoyed was watching movies online with friends, and something I’m really excited about is that I’ve created a Plex server with just over 2000 movies and almost 300 TV shows on it, closed captioning as well.

At my insistence, as a family we finally cut ties with cable TV and big ISP a few months ago, so we’re not spending ridiculous amounts of money with Cox. I put two months’ worth of Cox bills to good use with this server, and we’re all enjoying that and a few paid streaming apps.

Which means that I can easily set up and host movie nights for friends and share my libraries with friends 🥳

Of course with me being in the middle of selling the shop, I have no time to do this, but I have hope that I’ll be able to do this soon and play games again and try to rekindle friendships that I hopefully haven’t fucked up beyond repair.

If you’ve made it this far reading through all my rambling, thank you 💜

#i'm sorry #about me #real life #my family #mental issues #long post

[distortioneevee]

Wo @ Giratina: (he looked at himself in the water of the pool before focusing on him) "I have to agree with you about the location of this event. What do you plan on doing while you are here?"

“I guess…I need something to reassure me that not everyone is bad, after everything that’s happened to me. Angel being abandoned has really damaged my opinion on other mon, not that it was very good before, and I don't want to go down the same path as Mewtwo.”

Well. Technically the Mewtwo of his timeline hadn't done anything like that, but it was still a phrase most mon would get.

"Sorry for ranting. I guess... I've always just had to shove down my anger back in my timeline. Templar's been... really badly traumatized, and this sort of stuff is a trigger for him, Cobalt just assumes I'm mad at HIM, Galic thinks I'm just whining and yells at me to "do something about it" and then we get into an argument, Angel's just a kit, and the rest of the Legends don't know about this."

#In case it wasn't clear #Solaris sent Angel away because he knew he was going to end up talking about things he doesn't want her to hear #Solaris #Giratina #Eevee #Distortion Eevee #LoU Sleepover #Dark Angel #Angel #Wo #Wo-Chein

[oleanderblume]

Screaming into the void on this one. TW for trauma talk, csa, resurfacing memories n shit.

So I come home to my parents house about once a month for around a week. It's when I'm off work and really have nowhere else to be (until now thank fucking god)

I stayed in their guest room, which was my old room when I was a kid.

So...I've been trying to leave and move to another country, and my brain, being the dissociative asshole that it is, likes to flood trauma memories when I'm in a particular mindset. Typically it's when I'm feeling "safe" as in: I'm not currently being abused or traumatized on a daily basis.

Well recently its been flooding me every time I get closer to leaving, and it floods me with these highly specific memories that all have to do with my dad.

Now like, I've been abused my whole life, in a multitude of ways, including by my dad. My major shit is with sexual abuse, always has been, probably always will be. And most of what I've got came from my neighbor.

This stuff is not.

And like...it's been in contention on more than ine occasion, because of how big the blanks are and where they fit in our personal timeline. But now it feels like someone opened the fucking floodgates because it's all I get ever now. Just him. Just stuff with him.

I'd been dreading coming home because I didn't want to interact with my parents. My mom knows about some of the abuse (though I'm beginning to believe she knows much more than she lets on) and she tends to very fucking deliberately trigger me. Specifically over CSA stuff.

It's been this cycle of remembering things and then pushing them down for a week, then they come back up again, and if I ask about it or mention certain shit from when I was in that specific age range, I get a full dose of gaslighting.

No one in my family ever really like, paid attention to me, so my memories and feelings are pretty isolated, and it's been years so it's only me and the potential perpetrators who could corroborate my story, and those people are my parents. So of course they won't.

Anyways...I'm gonna talk about the memories now.

Essentially they took place when I was 11-14(?) And for the longest time I thought they might have just been a weird dream.

I'm just standing in my door and my dad is standing in front of me, talking about how my mom is mad at him and that he loves me and loves me like he loves her. I think you know where I'm going with this :/

I have other ones too. Mostly at night. He worked night shift so he would come home at 2 or 3 in the morning, and I can't tell if it's a real memory or not but he would come in my room to do stuff.

I don't know what to make of it. I don't want it to be real, that would be pretty fucking psychologically damaging. .

But here's the fucking kicker right?

I'm trans. I was recently home for several weeks because I had gotten top surgery and I had no choice but to stay with my parents for that time. While I'm heavily incapacitated, on lots of pain drugs, and sleeping a vast majority of the day.

I'm not new to nightmares. But I don't usually talk in my sleep, or beg. The only time I remember doing so was with a friend who had startled me awake because he touched me and I said "please don't" (context being my ex bf used to SA me while I was sleeping)

Ever since I stayed there after surgery and every time I stay there now, I get unbelievably paranoid. Like, can't sleep comfortably paranoid, and especially around my parents.

I had several nightmares about being touched and stuff, and like. It's different because I'm an adult, legally and all.

My parents don't really view me or any of my siblings as adults, let alone thinking, breathing people. They view us very similarly to objects that they can surround themselves with to look pretty and control through fear, pain, and extortion. Always sort of been that way.

It's gotten particularly bad since my sister pulled her son from them because my mother physically abused him. So she directs her anger at me because she can't punish my sister. She also directs her anger at me for being trans. Idfk probably some like, ownership issue she has with my body or whatever the fuck.

Point I'm getting at is basically: I'm pretty sure my parents knew, facilitated, and covered up at least a portion, if not all of my csa. And because they are especially mad at me for being not what they want, and also costing them (inadvertently) access to their grandson— that it might not have stopped(?)

They know I have DID. They gaslight the fuck out of me until I stopped talking about it, but they know it's there, they know I forget things and repress shit, and even if I haven't, they know how to gaslight incredibly well. My mom especially.

There are blindspots in my brain that make taking advantage of that stuff especially easy.

So...I came home the other night, stayed for a couple of days with my parents. My dad stayed up with me and my brother until we went to bed. He stayed up a little longer.

But I'd gone to bed. I'd forgotten to lock the door, but I fell asleep pretty quickly. But I kept waking up. I woke up cause I heard my dad walking around the house, talking. But they were that fleeting sort of waking where it's only a few words before you roll over and go back to sleep.

I had a nightmare that he came into the room and did things. I think it was a nightmare, at least. I do t know. It didn't feel like a normal nightmare and I woke myself up asking for my mom like a little kid. And I remember...certain things...that aren't easily replicated in a dream.

I of course asked him the next day if he'd gotten up some time in the night to do something, but he said no.

I don't like talking g about this. Because it's basically speculation and speculation on a thing I so viscerally do not want to be true. I worry that I make stuff up, convince myself of a reality that doesn't exist and then react to that as though it does. Idk.

It's especially hard because the next day my mom triggered the ever loving fuck out of me and then got mad at me for shutting down the conversation because no, I in fact do not like hearing what pedophiles say to children while they hurt them. It's fucking triggering. Especially after the night previous.

She's been making constant remarks on my size or weight, most often saying I look pregnant, asking if I'm pregnant. Which is impossible, because I don't have enough sex with other people for that to even be a concern.

The one that bugged me was her remark after I'd come back home after being legitimately assaulted, she said I looked 3 months pregnant :/ which is literally impossible because I'd have had to had sex while I was fucking UNCONSCIOUS and healing from surgery.

Most of this is just rambling sorry. It's 1 am and I need to sleep but I needed to say something somewhere, sorry.

[winderrific-moved]

imagine feeling like youre allowed to feel your feelings

#wind howls #trauma tornado #i want to let some anger out because so much has been piling up lately but i feel terrified just thinking about it #for some people being sad is being vulnerable but im at my most weak when im angry #because i dont know how to be angry. i was never allowed to be angry i never allowed myself to be angry #letting my anger out is being so. vulnerable and thinking about it makes me want to cry out of fear #but im tired of keeping some if my emotion in. i know i need to allow to be angry but how can i do thag without feeling so awful ? #and most of my anger is being mad at traumatic stuff that has been going on since birth. or years ago #its not stupid when its others that are angry at their traumatic events but for some reason it is when its me #and i dont like to. go into detail. ir give out that kind of info. its scary to let others know which ways youve been hurt before #and which ways you can be hurt again.

[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 159: Justice is blind + Foreshadowing from chapter 6 and JJK0?

This chapter we’re introduced to Higuruma, one of the players in the Culling Game with 100 points who Yuji and Megumi will most likely target in an attempt to add new rules to the game. 

As I mentioned before, JJK is the equivalent of Murphy’s Law on steroids and we are guaranteed for Gege to pull the rug from under our feet. For all you know, the odds that Higuruma agrees to help them without a problem are 50/50.

Onto this week’s theories... This is a long one so brace yourself.

Higuruma’s Shikigami is the stuff of nightmares

Higuruma’s Shikigami, if that’s what it is, is loaded with symbolism. Perfect for my Cursed Technique of reading between the lines and over-thinking every single detail.

What I love about Higuruma is that he is a man on a mission--sort of like a Shonen Protagonist. He is single-minded in his pursuit of saving those he sees as victims to the monster that is the Japanese legal court system.

Despite continuing to put himself on the line for the people he is trying to “save,” the oppressive system that they are part of makes it impossible for him to achieve his goals. And yet, he keeps trying to fight the beast that is the legal system even when the odds of him ever winning are .1%.

In the end, it isn’t the legal system itself that breaks him, but rather his own unwavering conviction combined with his frustration and the anger from those he promised a victory he was not able to deliver despite his greatest efforts.

The only thing granted to all is an unfair reality

Lady Justice has been depicted as blind since the 16th century. Her blindfold is meant to represent her objectivity and impartiality before the law.

But Higuruma knows that a 99.9% conviction rate is anything but objective and impartial. Keeping his “eyes open” is his desire to bring awareness to a system that is broken.

What I found interesting, however, is that while Higuruma is intent on keeping his eyes open, his Shikigami’s eyes are sewn shut, as though they are being forced shut by thread.

If there is anyone who is closest to embodying the ideal of blind justice, it is Higuruma.

This makes me wonder how we’re going to see Higuruma’s character evolve, especially as he comes across Yuji and friends.

Higuruma vs. Megumi/Yuji?

Remember I said Higuruma might be willing to help Yuji and Megumi add a rule? I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen, but it is still a possibility. He does seem like a fair (pun intended) person after all.

What’s being set up, I feel like (and I could be wrong), is a showdown between two opposing belief systems: 

Higuruma’s blind trust in serving and facilitating justice vs Megumi’s self-serving justice.

Ironically, they both 

want to save good people, 

neither considers himself to be a hero, and 

their sense of justice is self-serving... they just have different criteria for what that means

Higuruma wants to facilitate justice for people who are innocent but are victims of the Japanese Law system. He’s done the research and he believes these people to be innocent and as having done nothing wrong. 

On the other hand, Megumi wants to facilitate justice for people he cares about no matter how potentially dangerous they are (and this last bit is really important). 

I realized recently that despite Sukuna having killed a lot of people during Shibuya, Megumi has not attempted to kill him since the Cursed Womb Arc. 

Remember, Megumi has said he’s responsible for those deaths since he was the one who saved Yuji.

In addition, not only does Megumi need Yuji’s strength to save Tsumiki, but I am going to go as far as saying that Megumi cares deeply for Yuji to the point he still doesn’t want him to die even after everything that has happened up to this point.

Which begs the question, how is Higuruma going to react to Yuji’s existence?

This brings me to the possible foreshadowing from all the way back in the Cursed Womb Arc and possibly even JJK0.

Foreshadowing from chapter 6 or Crack Theory?

When I first read the new chapter I was intrigued that one of the characters Higuruma is defending as an attorney has a similar backstory to Tadashi from back in chapter 6.

Although their face structure looks similar...

The circumstances are slightly different in that Tadashi’s case involved driving without a license and Higuruma’s client was drunk driving.

But if we’re willing to suspend judgement for a minute, this is important because, if it is, in fact, Tadashi he is referring to here, then this panel just goes to show that Gege foreshadows like a boss. 

And what if that girl who got ran over happens to be Rika from JJK0? 

There isn’t necessarily concrete evidence that Tadashi is the one who ran Rika over AND I would need to look at the timeline of events more closely, but if it IS the case... talk about butterfly effect in action.

But the foreshadowing doesn’t end there. Someone pointed out that in chapter 143, Megumi tells Yuji they aren’t heroes fighting for justice and that no one can truly ever judge JJS.

So... no one can judge sorcerers, unless judging is exactly what Higuruma has been doing to rack up points...

The fact that Higuruma has 100 points tells us he’s been on a killing rampage, and from everything we see him go through in the chapter and from that look on his face in the last panel, we should not be surprised that he’s gone off the deep end.

Honestly, characters who loose their shit (hello Feral Megumi) are one of my favorite things about JJK.

I am writing all of this because it goes to show that Gege does not show you anything in his story that doesn’t have meaning in the grander scheme of things. Which leaves room for interpretation about whether Saori and Yuko will have roles moving forward.

Right along these lines, in looking for a specific line from chapter 9, I ran into this little gem:

Is this foreshadowing about Tsumiki too? 

Maybe, maybe not.

As I said before, half the fun is in going through the journey of JJK unfolding before our very own eyes, while putting the pieces together from all of the breadcrumbs Gege dropped along the way.

But the fun doesn’t end there. I am fascinated at how as a fandom we willingly get traumatized when Gege kills off everybody and their mom that you cared about, while simultaneously loving every single minute of it.

We know it’s coming, and we’re there for it.

That’s Gege’s Cursed Technique for you... he gives you what you didn’t know you wanted.

Gege setting up the stage for madness

All in all, Gege has been painstakingly setting the stage for the madness that is to come during the Culling Game and the hype just keeps on escalating. If the Culling Game arc is anything like Shibuya, we can expect, again, Murphy’s Law in full effect. 

I was chatting with @darthdutton​ about how I started reading the Shibuya Arc only a few months ago and therefore I did not get to experience it as it was unfolding. 

It makes me so happy that I now get to experience the Culling Game as it happens and I am both so distraught and excited for whatever comes our way.

And when I say “whatever comes our way” I mean that I trust Gege to continue to surprise me.

I am here for the hype but I stay for the story

I loved this chapter! 

I thought it was the f*cking bomb.com because you can see Gege starting to tie loose ends from possible foreshadowing he shared at the beginning of the story. 

Plus, we got to see his story-telling skills in action as he creates yet another relatable character.

I truly admire Gege as a writer--the fact that he can come up with a story on a week-to-week basis, execute on it, create very human and relatable characters, set up foreshadowing all the way back at the beginning, and drop breadcrumbs along the way is just mind-blowing to me.

God, I love Jujutsu Kaisen.

Anyways... this was a bit long but I just felt like I had a lot to say about this seemingly insignificant chapter. Hope you enjoyed it, and as always, I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it! 

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen manga #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #god i love jujutsu kaisen #jjk theory #jjk ch 159 #fushiguro megumi #megumi fushiguro #yuji itadori #Itadori yuji #gege akutami #okkotsu yuta

[pigeonp0st]

Hey can you do a fic where reader is under mind control of some sort from an enemy and is forced to attack Nat and the rest of the avengers and Nat has to talk her out of it and calm her down something rlly intense and angsty pls

Natasha Romanoff x Reader #6

Words: 2,177

Warnings: Agnst

(tell me if there’s more I should add)

Notes:

I realized after I finished writing that I didn’t have Nat talk R out of it like you asked...I solved it in another way...i’m sorry!! I hope you enjoy anyways, thanks a lot for requesting (and sorry for spelling mistakes...there’s probably a lot) also sorry for this in general...I’m disappointed in it and the ending...I was sleep deprived and delirious for half of it...

———

It was supposed to be a simple mission, and a simple day. You and Nat had planned to head to the beach for the first time in a long time afterwards and everything. It was supposed to be a good day.

Good day...ha.

The sad truth is, is that things don’t always work out the way you expect them to. Sometimes things go horribly wrong.

Sometimes you get mind controlled by the ‘big bad’ and hurt the people you love most. Or maybe that stuff only happened to people like you. ‘Heroes.’

——-

You were conscious. That was the cruel agonizing part of it all. It’s that with every swing of your knife, every landed hit, every plea that fell from their lips, you knew what was happening.

You knew what was happening but could do nothing about it. Well...you could, technically, but it hurt. It hurt to fight. The pain was similar, you imagine, to what it feels like getting burned alive and then ran over eighteen times.

You didn’t think you could do it. Your will power wasn’t that strong. You would probably die trying to gain control—

It hurt. It hurt. You didn’t want to. You couldn’t, you—

Natasha. Natasha was saying; “fight it, Y/N, fight it,” and to you and to the pain that fighting the mind control caused, she may as well have been saying, “die, Y/N, die”

And yeah. Okay. For her, you will. For her you must.

Tears were running down your cheeks, it was the one thing the mind control didn’t have control of. It was...weird. Weird feeling such an immense amount of pain, such an immense amount of suffering, and being unable to show it. Unable to scream. You were silent, but your body felt loud, your head felt loud.

For a long minute you couldn’t hear them, you couldn’t even register the things you were seeing, all you knew was pain, everything outside of that was illegitimate.

Then, silence. For a brief, blissful moment before it was gone again. Nat’s arms were around you, and you were shaking, but completely still otherwise—finally, finally, you weren’t hurting them— “You’re okay,” Nat whispered, and how could that concept, in a few moments of agony, become something so foreign. Have you ever been okay before? Have you ever lived without this much hurt?

———-

“Nat,” you croaked, the words shaking almost as roughly as your body. “Natasha, kill me.”

Those three words, said with an immeasurable amount of desperation, were just as much not your own as your body was at this moment. They were said in a moment of pain.

Somehow, Natasha knew that. She knew that. She knows what you look like when you’re experiencing physical pain. It’s been seared into her mind countless times, but that doesn’t prevent her heart from aching as much as it does when you start begging.

“Natasha please, please baby, please. Somebody, please! Before it—”

And then you were screaming, and Natasha hates how it’s even worse than the begging.

Somehow you’ve managed to gain control of your vocals, but your body isn’t yours again, she realizes it when you start struggling against her arms…it’s a terrible thing to realize.

“Stop,” Nat yells, so obviously terrified and raw that half of the Avengers freeze where they’re circling you. “Stop fighting it, it’s okay, it’s okay.” She holds you as tightly as she can, with her eyes screwed shut. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

And god, she hates the way it sounds like a goodbye too, but she just knows that even if you could register her voice right now, you aren’t going to listen.

You’re going to keep fighting to protect her and the others, because it’s what you’ve always done.

So Natasha takes a deep breath, in and out, and tries to think about her options. She tries to think about her options with you struggling and trying to reach for your knife, and the Avengers circled around her with nothing but ashen expressions that speak of nightmares to come, and she doesn’t know. She just doesn’t know.

There’s no safe way for her to knock you out for a long period of time, not ones that won’t cause long term problems afterwards, but she doesn’t need any because suddenly your body stops struggling, and stops moving, and you’re slumped unconscious in her arms.

It’s a great relief for everyone until Natasha lifts her hand from your pulse, and says, shockingly and terrifyingly devoid of emotion; “I think she’s going into shock.”

——

Everything is a blur to Natasha after that. She recalls yelling, lights, arriving at the hospital, a countdown of; one, two, three, and then she’s sitting in a seat next to your hospital bed wondering when everything went so wrong.

——

All Natasha hears when she closes her eyes is you screaming in agony at the top of her lungs, and all she feels is the phantom touch of your cold ashen skin against her hands.

You’re okay now, Natasha reminds herself. You’re going to be okay, but there’s something deeply traumatizing and everlasting about the moments where you’re sure everything won’t be—the moments you’re almost sure the love of your life won’t be.

Hearing someone you love beg you to kill them, seeing the person you love most in so much agony, it’s...scarring...but Natasha will be strong. She has to be, because being weak hurts too much, but more importantly; you need her to be.

As traumatizing as the experience was for her, she knows that yours was just as bad—if not worse. You were strong for her, so she’ll be for you.

Like protecting her to you seemed like your only option, even while you were hurting so much because of it, it’s Natasha’s only option too.

So she’ll keep it all together, until you’re back to normal and she doesn’t have to anymore.

——-

Natasha startles when you wake up. She physically startles, because the first thing you do is start sobbing, sobbing hard enough to make Natasha concerned that you’ll start hyperventilating.

“Are you okay?” Natasha asks, up from her seat in a flash to be by your side, “is he still mind controlling you? Are you still hurting?”

You aren’t looking at her, Natasha realizes with a large amount of grief. You won’t look at her, but you’re shaking your head no to her questions, and she supposes that perhaps you are okay—physically.

She wants more than that for you, so she sighs, heavily and sadly— because she can’t protect you from this anymore than she was able to protect you from the mind control—and wraps her arms around your distraught form.

“It’s okay,” Nat mumbles, and then winces and corrects herself because it’s so clearly not. “It will be okay.”

That she is sure of, but you aren’t.

“Natasha,” you force out (Natasha tries not to remember the way you said her name yesterday), “You’re covered in- you’re covered in bruises and cuts...baby, i’m so sorry.”

Your voice cracks on sorry, and Natasha closes her eyes to prevent her own tears from falling. “It wasn’t you,” she whispers fiercely, “i’m not mad at you. Of course i’m not.”

“You should be.”

You pull away from her then. Natasha feels the loss in her heart, she’s sure.

All she wants to do is hold you in her arms and never let go, but with the amount of unjustified shame you’re feeling she doubts you’ll let her.

“Your arm,” you stutter, “did it need stitches?”

Natasha won’t lie to you, so she says nothing—instead she tries to meet your haunted eyes. It’s a useless attempt.

She knows what you’re remembering, and she hates it. “The cut on my neck...it wasn’t that deep. It shouldn’t even scar.”

“I didn’t ask you about the cut on your neck, Natasha.”

Natasha tenses where she’s standing, caught off guard by the loathing in your voice until she realizes that it’s not directed at her, but at yourself.

Your eyes finally, finally, meet Natasha’s. They’re tear brimmed, scared, and unbelievably angry. “I’m going to kill him,” you rasp brokenly, “Natasha, i’m going to kill him.”

——-

Nat says nothing. She just continues to stare back at you.

“He had no right, Natasha, he had no right to do that to me,” your face is crumbling now, anger turning back into devastation in an instant. “Nat, why—why was it me? I—god, i’m so angry, i’m so—i’m so sorry. I’m sorry, i’m sorry. God...what did I do?”

Natasha still says nothing, why isn’t she saying anything? You want to yell at her, you want her to yell at you, you want—you want.

“Is Clint...is he okay?” You ask wobbly.

You remember vividly the moment you stabbed him, and the betrayal on his face, the betrayal on everyone’s faces until they realized you weren’t in control of your own body.

“He’s okay,” Natasha says simply. Then, “the man who did what he did to you...Wanda is handling it. She’s able to block out his mind control.”

“Okay.”

“Can I hold you?”

“What?”

Natasha shifts where she stands, looking down. She’s never looked more uncertain. “You didn’t seem to want me close before...I wasn’t sure…”

Oh.

“Nat,” you whisper, heartbroken, “I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust I’m me.”

Natasha tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear and leans down to kiss your temple. You want nothing more than for her to get away from you. You don’t want to hurt her ever again. You can’t. “Oh baby,” she laughs a sad sort of laugh, “you’ve been handcuffed.”

And that, for whatever reason, starts another wave of unreleased tears, but you're laughing now too...if only at the insanity of your situation.

You feel restricted by the handcuffs, trapped in the way you were during the mind control, but you also feel safe. Safe from doing harm, so you allow her, between breaths, to join you on the hospital bed.

She lets out a relieved breath when you do, both because she’s allowed to hold you, and because you’re laughing...yeah it might me a manic sort of laugh, but it’s something.

Something is better than nothing. It’s a start.

——

“Natasha, I can tie my own fucking shoes.”

Nat looks up at you from where she’s crouched by your feet, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Then why’d you ask me to do it?”

“W-What? No I didn’t.” Mind controlled. You were mind controlled again. Fuck—

“Yeah you did,” Natasha reminds gently, “while you were eating your disgusting jello.”

Oh. Yeah.

You release a shaky breath, laughing quietly all the while, because wow. Wow. You’re losing your mind. “I totally remembered that...they just slipped something into my jello…”

Natasha watches you carefully for a few moments before rolling her eyes and getting to her feet. “Tie your own shoes.”

“Asshole,” you mutter bitterly under your breath. Natasha pretends not to hear you and simply presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“I love you,” she confesses quietly. Natasha’s been saying as much over and over again since you first awoke.

“Now I feel like the asshole. Just go get the discharge papers.”

Finally, Natasha laughs.

——-

You’re healing still, emotionally, the Avengers and Natasha are very aware of that. They’ve been as gentle as they can possibly be with you since you left the hospital a couple of weeks ago, but now—now it’s time for an intervention.

So naturally, you press the big red emergency meeting button Steve hides in his room and force everyone to meet in the living room.

“I’m not sad anymore,” You announce to them all when Wanda asks why the fuck she was woken up for.

The grumbling immediately quiets.

“Well,” you pause, considering, “I...am. Deep down. I’m tryna work through it but it’s kinda hard now that I'm forgetting a lot of what happened.”

Natasha sits up at that, alarmed. “You’re forgetting?”

You wave your hand dismissively. “My mind is blocking it out. I’m traumatized...but pretty okay otherwise.” The others don’t look convinced, so with an annoyed groan you relent. “I’m thinking about seeing Steve’s therapist. You guys should too.”

A chorus of protest instantly comes forward, not to your surprise...but Wanda...Wanda does surprise you.

“I am, too.”

Then Natasha, “I...was actually considering it myself.”

Well then.

“I’m also considering making my own sitcom,” Wanda continues, resting her head in her hand. “What do you guys think?”

“Stick to therapy, Wanda. Stick to therapy.”

At that, everyone comes forward in agreement.

You’re sure, in that moment, that with these people you’ll be okay.

#natasha x y/n #natasha x reader #natasha x you #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha imagine #natasha romanoff #marvel x y/n #marvel x female reader #marvel x you #marvel x reader #marvel imagine #female reader #black widow imagine #black widow x y/n #black widow #black widow x you #black widow x reader #imagine

[kaypeace21]

Stranger things is about mental health & trauma- deal with it!

I’ve seen a lot of people claim anyone who mentioned this topic immediately be gaslit and told they’re “just crazy” and “rudely projecting their own issues on to the characters.’ Like- no you don’t have to believe my  Will DID/Lonnie theory ( I could be wrong). But to claim one of the show’s central themes isn’t about mental health/trauma (screams either complete lack of lit comprehension or denial cause you have your own negative biases towards such people). So let’s just go into what’s literal text-not subtext/symbolism. Just the super blatant stuff.  RIGHT IN THE SHOW!

S1

-We have El when she first appears on screen  asked by Benny if her parents starved and hurt her and if that’s why she ran away. Benny then calls CPS to say El “may have been ab*sed or something.” After this Lucas says there is “seriously something wrong with her-wrong in the head. She’s probably from the NUT-HOUSE in curly county.penthurst” We also see El  cannonically has PTSD-all of s1 she’ll see something benign (a cat, a coke commercial, a closet) and is triggered to see a traumatic flashback. That’s literally ptsd.  There’s also hints throughout the seasons she’s developmentally behind in both language, telling time etc (neglect like El’s irl can cause an intellectual disability-analysis on El/that subject here).The real pethurst in pensylvannia (not the one in stranger things/ Curly county)  closed in 1986-  it was a facility for people and mostly  kids with intellectual disabilities (it wasn’t technically a psych facility like the one in st)-but it was infamous for it’s abuse of these intellectually disabled patients kept there. We also have Brenner be a ab*sive psychiatrist.

- Hopper after suffering from the loss of his daughter. Is popping pills like candy, drinking and smoking constantly. He later says he used to hallucinate and forgot what was real -seeing and hearing sarah and says if he didn’t confront the pain he’d “fall down a black hole he couldn’t get out of.” NO... subtext here about what the void represents nope.

- Both mothers (Terry & Joyce) are dismissed as being mentally ill and simply grieving the loss of their kids . But both end up being right about the supernatural.

- “Terry pretends Jane is real. i mean it’s all make believe. you know the doctors all say it’s a coping mechanism.”

- While with Joyce the whole town pre s1 already questioned her mental health. Jonathan says “She used to have anxiety problems (pre s1).” And Jonathan, Hopper, and Lonnie all assume she’s hallucinating: talking to Will via lights, seeing a man without a face, saying Will’s body is fake -due to grief. Plus Lonnie mentions the fact Joyce’s aunt Darlene also used to hallucinate as a possible reason  (terry’s aunt also had mental health issues mentioned in s2 by Becky). Lonnie even says everything Joyce is seeing  is “all in her head.”  Hopper and Jon both say she needs to sleep and accept reality and Lonnie says she needs to see a “shrink”.  Hopper “i’m not saying that you’re crazy”. Joyce : “no, you are.” Joyce also says to Lonnie “Stop looking at me like that... like everyone else like i’m out of my damn mind.” Hopper also says about Joyce she’s “on the edge”. Callahan says in response , “she’s been on the edge for a while now” (referring to her mental health- even before Will’s dissappearance)”. While Lonnie says Jonathan is “feeding into her hallucinations ... you’re going to push her right over the edge.” In s2 Hopper says “ I think everyone is on edge- you, me, Will most of all. (when talking about Will’s ptsd/trauma)” 

- in s1 They claim Will just “fell” over the edge of the quarry’s cliff. Later the only other queer coded character (Mike) jumps off the quarry cliff (where Will’s body was found) cause the homophobic troy forced him too jump. Troy even says earlier dead-Will is “flying with all the other fairies all happy and gay” (to Mike). And Troy says to Hopper El made Mike “fly” after jumping off the cliff. Friendship saved him from jumping off the edge metaphorically ( and he’ll prob eventually be happy and gay too).

s2/3

-Will is seeing a therapist . And we are told he has ptsd and will experience the anniversary effect, personality changes,nightmares, having episodes, etc. And things “will get worse before they get better”.  Mike also asks if what Will is seeing is “real or like the doctors say all in your head?” And Will continues to see hallucinations of the mf/upsidedown that only he can see initially.

-Hopper also agrees with owens mentioning how he knew guys with ptsd . joyce : “it’s not like he’s describing a nightmare. He talks about them like they’re real.” Hopper: “Yeah, because they’re not nightmares they’re flashbacks.I think he’s right about trauma.I think everyone is on edge (bringing that s1 ref back), Me you, Will, most of all.Nothing’s gonna go back to the way that it was. But it’ll get better.In time.”

-Nancy suffers from survivor’s guilt and drunkingly says she killed Barb. Jonathan says like Nancy he has “a weight that you that carry all the time . i feel it too.” (cough depression). He also says he tries to be there for Will but says about Will “he’s not the same. maybe things can’t go back to the way they were. (mirroring Hopper’s words earlier that season)”

-Jonathan said in s1 Joyce had “anxiety issues” than Nancy says in s3 “you really are your mother’s son... you worry too much.” Then we see him look worried after the comment.

- in s2, Axel & a scientist both call El and Will “schizos” because of their powers. In s3 mrs driscoll isn’t believed about the supernatural cause she’s schizophrenic-but like Joyce/Terry was right.

- Kali saves a woman named Dottie (a british slang term for crazy)  from a mental hospital and then compares herself and El to dottie. saying her non-powered gang is “Like us ...outsiders... society discarded them.”  In graphitti we even see the title “obedlam” a british poem about discarding the mentally ill and leaving them homeless.  El before this sees a mentally ill man screaming “we’re all dead!” Kali’s friend says to El, after this encounter they were “dead all of us” until kali “saved them here” (points to head) “and here” (points to heart). Pointing to the theme of love and friendship helping those with such issues. Similar to the cliff analogy.

-The cycle of ab*se. Max in s2 says she’s afraid of becoming like Billy (her ab*ser). We see Billy mimic his ab*ser neil and inflict pain on max. In s3 we see the roots of his behavior are linked to mimicking Neil- Neil in a flashback says  about baseball “what are you scared?”  “ did i raise a p*ssy for a son”. So young Billy later in a fight says to a boy “ what are you scared to fight me? fight me p*ssy. (as he beats the boy)” Deflecting his anger of his father on to someone else. In s3, We see as a kid he used to say to Neil “don’t hurt her” (his mom)-specifically after  Neil backhand slaps her -but we later see possessed Billy backhand slap Max (just like neil).  The resentment to his mother leaving - festered into how he views women and max negatively . And his attraction to mrs wheeler prob is linked to him subconsciously missing his mother. Max in s2 even says  he can’t take it out on her mother so he does so to her instead (we even have Billy hallucinate hurting mrs wheeler).We see in s2 the cycle of abuse is there- Billy mimics Neil, and then Max mimics Billy. Billy harrasses Max and yells “SAY IT!” (mimicking Neil).  Max like Billy later  yells “SAY IT” and uses a bat /violence to stand up for herself against Billy- which earlier she said she was trying to combat … explaining she can be angry like Billy sometimes but she never wants to be like him (her nickname symbolizing this: aka ‘mad max’).  Billy’s last dying words were an apology to Max- for becoming her neil. And we hopefully will see Max break this cycle.

- Will says his now memories (that he describes like dreams) are “growing “, “spreading “,and “killing”. While Kali says they need to face their father and (as Brenner) says El has to confront her “wound” or else it’ll “grow”, “spread” and “eventually it’ll kill her.” Kali says she used to be like El . She used to bottle her pain away and it “spread.” But she then says  “I confronted my pain and I finally began to heal (from those wounds).” We also see with jonathan and nancy when describing “shared trauma” zoom in onto the scars on their hands. The wound heeled into a scar so to speak.

S2 & 3 ENDINGS

both have Hopper do a speech that delves into dealing with trauma/depression but still finding good along the way.

-s2 Hopper outside the snowball: “how are you holding up? Yeah, that feeling never goes away. It is true what they say, you know. Everyday it does get easier.”

-s3 Hopper monolouge : “ Feelings jesus. For so long, i’d forgotten what those even were. I’ve been stuck in one place,in a cave you might say , a deep dark cave (cough s2 supernatural cave). For the first time in a long time, i started to feel things again. I started to feel happy. Life... yeah sometimes it’s painful .sometimes it’s sad, and sometimes it’s suprising... happy.. And when life hurts you, because it will .remember the hurt . The hurt is good. It means you’re out of that cave.”

BUT YES- St has nothing to do with mental health/trauma, we’re just “crazy” and “projecting”. It’s not like some of ya’ll  act pompous when you just have a bias and get pissy at the idea of relating to characters you “other” as “crazy” or “damaged” irl or anything (so attack people for pointing it out). Or (benefit of the doubt) you are just like.... oblivious... or just a kid who doesn’t know better XD

#stranger things #el hopper #will byers #jim hopper #joyce byers #max mayfield #billy hargrove #kali prasad #mike wheeler #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler

[sariahsue]

I just saw your take one Lilo&Stitch's approach to child protection and I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to write realistic stuff in this matter? I've been meaning to write a foster care/adoption fic and I do know the system in France must be at least a little different - and I will get down the research hole once I have a bit more time - but do you have any advice on how to write the kids reactions, the way parents deal with everything, the bonding part... things like this, so I can avoid clichés.

You don't have to answer though, feel free to ignore all this akdjwja I just figured there's no harm in asking XD

Yeah, sure! (To anyone else reading this who has a fic, feel free to send me a message if you have questions!) I’m definitely not the most knowledgeable person, but I know quite a bit. And I’m sure things are a bit different in France (hopefully their court system is better - yikes!) but I think the human element would be pretty similar, so here we go. 

First off, know that everyone is foster care is having a rough time constantly. Foster kids, workers, parents, foster parents, foster siblings. And no one knows what’s going on long term. There’s always a lot of uncertainty. Will the kids go home soon? Are parental rights going to be terminated at the next court date? Who knows???

The birth parents, at best, are going through a really tough time in their life, made worse because their kids were taken away from them. Some care about their kids, but they’re extremely self-centered and have zero parents skills. Some are manipulative and see foster care as free babysitting, and as long as they get to see their kid for an hour or so a week, this arrangement is fantastic for them! At worst, they’re just horrible human beings who abuse children. In general, most parents are clueless and selfish and pretty manipulative. They say they’re good parents and have no clue why their kids were taken away, even though their kid has cigarette burn marks on their back, or had to eat out of the garbage to survive because the were left alone for hours at a time when they were four, or worse. They have no clue at all what their behavior does to their kids, and they refuse to listen to anyone who tries to explain it to them.

No matter what type of parents they were, their kids ALWAYS love them and want to go home. Every single one of them. No matter the age. No matter what their home life put them through. Some of them aren’t old enough to understand why they can’t go home. Some have been in foster care for years and hardly remember living at home but still want to go home.  

It makes for complicated foster relationships sometimes because the kid will be attached to both birth and foster parents and feel guilty or conflicted or disloyal, or they’ll try really hard not to be attached to the foster parents in the first place. (I can think of only one exception to this. Two sisters who had been put into another home and liked the foster family and decided that they were going to be adopted by this family and were very excited about it... except the foster family had no plans to adopt them. I never learned what happened there.) 

And this is before accounting for the mental health struggles that often accompany the trauma most of them have been through. Some kids come in with anxiety that makes it difficult to trust new people. Some kids’ behavior is so extreme that it’s difficult for foster parents to take care of them, and so the kid moves around constantly. (If their behavior is too bad, they can sometimes be put into either a group home or residential, either temporarily or permanently.)

Parents are also entitled to visits, usually either weekly or every other week, at least while the goal is reunification (which is always starts out as). Before the pandemic, these usually took place in the DCF (Department of Children and Families is what it’s called in my state) office or in a visitation center. Sometimes the court orders that the visits be supervised so they don’t start promising their kids that they’re coming to get them next week. Often the workers think that sitting down the hallway not listening counts as supervision. 🙄 

With the pandemic, kids have been meeting over Zoom. That’s being phased out pretty soon here. Kids are almost always triggered by these visits. I mean, they look forward to them usually. Some kids are mad at their parents and don’t want to talk to them, but almost always, they want to see their parents. And almost always whatever behavior problems they had before is extremely worse for the next 2-5 days. (Which is terrible if you get a visit every week.) Some parents bail on these visits regularly. Some consistently bail on only birthdays and Christmas. We’ve learned not to tell the kid that they have a visit coming up until we know it’s definitely happening, or sometimes only right before we’re planning on leaving to go, because the anticipation of a visit is triggering or because getting stood up by your own mother is traumatizing. Sometimes you can get the kid’s therapist to write a note asking for the visits to be less frequent for the kid’s sake, but often that just means every other week instead of every week.

For foster families welcoming kids into their home, it’s a little different. They’re often more stable, and their whole life isn’t shifting around them. They’re just getting one or two kids into the family. The home dynamic is going to be a little different. Nothing huge, compared to what the foster kids are going through. It often depends on the kid how fast you get attached. Sometimes you know kids are only going to be there for a month because their normal foster family had to deal with an emergency, but the plan is to take them back soon. Sometimes they’re adorable babies and you get super attached really, really fast. Sometimes they’re so unhappy and scared that they make your home life completely miserable. Sometimes you’ve seen so many kids come and go over the years, and they’ve all left eventually, and your heart becomes guarded to protect you from that pain. But you get attached eventually anyway. 

And sometimes your parents are given a newborn whose goal is reunification and it’s love at first sight even though you don’t know if you can keep him, and then he’s put up for adoption when he’s two and you adopt him SO HARD. And then you make future foster kids upset because you can’t adopt them too. :( And even though they get adopted by friends of yours, they still feel conflicted over it four years later. 

You would think that a kid raised completely in their adoptive home from birth would have no problems, and sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes they still get upset about the adoption when they’re older because the foundational belief they have about themselves is that their mother didn’t want them, even though it’s not true. 

(This is the real-life story of my brother. We are the only family he’s ever known, and he’s 13 now, but he still has issues over being adopted. The other boy is 16 and is doing much better with his new family now, though he still has some issues. We had him for a very long time, and we were all happy that we know his adoptive family well because we stayed it contact with him, which almost never happens when a foster kid leaves.)

Oh, I forgot one thing. Usually when kids first get to your house, they are perfect little angels for a while. Depending on the kid, it’s either a couple days or maybe even three months. It’s called the “honeymoon period.” Once their subconscious realizes that this is a safe place to work on their issues and they aren’t in physical danger, they start to process what they’ve been through. It comes out in a variety of ways. Behavioral issues, bedwetting, explosive anger, nightmares, etc.

A note about social workers: All the workers (at least in my state) constantly have too many cases. Like, double what they’re legally supposed to have. Most of them try hard to keep up. Some DO NOT CARE. Some are fantastic and put extra time in to go to the kid’s end-of-the-school-year recitals and build a relationship with them. They’re in charge of organizing visits and making sure the kids have everything set up and are generally important in the kid’s life. They’re required to visit once a month and make sure foster parents have all the right paperwork and arrange dentist visits and bring them to all their therapy appointments. (FYI, You get a piece of paper that says you’re the legal guardian. You have to show it to schools and doctors when you make arrangements for the kids. My mom also keeps a copy in her purse, just in case a kid starts screaming “HELP! SHE’S NOT MY MOM” in the middle of the store or something. It’s never happened, but you know, just in case.)

Also, you would think that they’re the constant in the kid’s life, but if the birth parents move, the case gets transferred to another office in the state, and so the social workers switch. I sincerely hope that’s not how things are done in France because it’s garbage for a lot of reasons.

Okay, I’ve written you an essay, but I hope it was a useful essay! Let me know if you have any more questions!

#foster care #adoption #birth parents

[aimasup]

So I saw a bunch of Human AU Sanders Sides and thought I could make my own version

Backstories under the cut for anyone who’s interested

(Tw warnings such as mentions of abuse, homophobia and car accidents but it’s angst with a happy ending don’t worry)

-Long post-

-Patton:

Toddler to child: Parents love me and I love them! Lots of friends in kindergarten! Met Logan one day! He’s so smart!

Grade school: More friends! Logan’s opening up! Everything’s perfect!

Highschool: My parents are arguing more and I’m tired Meeting Roman and Remus! Roman’s so cool! Meeting Virgil! Virgil needs a hug! I feel sad and stressed sometimes and I don’t think I want to worry anyone with it.- Virgil’s with us now yay!

College: My best buds are here! I got into an accident halfway through my studies Virgil please don’t feel responsible. It’s not your fault. I’m so sorry Logan I should have understood your situation better. Roman please get mad I deserve your anger and I feel awful and empty but I shouldn’t show it because some people have it worse than I do I know it why do I feel this way? I’m fine honestly this is fine everything’s fine I’m just the problem -

Adulthood: So. I’m not the problem. I just need to work on my attitude and my flaws. I love my friends and family so much because they let me know that expressing my feelings is ok! My parents are fine now! I’m getting professional help! I work in an animal care center with Virgil! Roman is successful and pursuing his dreams! Met this guy named Dean and he works with Logan in the bookstore next to our center! He’s fun but he might need to stop lying so much, but other than that I’m happy with where I am now!

-Virgil:

Toddler to child: Parents love me and I love them. Bullies can go suck it. I feel bad that my parents always spend their time comforting me but they’re my whole world and I feel safe with them.

Grade school: Bullies are getting worse. Dad’s dead. Mom is stressed and busy so I don’t want to trouble her further. She still spends time with me for some reason. I don’t think I deserve friends. MCR is great. I met Dean and Remus. They’re. Interesting. I hate Roman.

High school: Oh my god everything is stressful and oppressive and everyone is scared of me. That’s good. Maybe. Met Patton, Logan and Roman. They’re only somewhat scared? Hm. Dean and Remus are getting into even more trouble than usual and pulling me into them. Maybe they aren’t good for me with how they’ve been acting lately. I’ll go be with Patton. - Maybe they don’t really accept me they’re just waiting to kick me out like everyone else why would they even like me-

College: Mom I love you so much I swear I’ll get a good job and make this college money worth it you’ll see. And things are surprisingly less stressful? I really like my friends? Patton why the hell did you save me from that car. Logan you have some explaining to do. Roman you shut the fuck up. - Everything is my fault I should have never said anything why am I always like this everyone was right about me- 

 Adulthood: Mom!! You can now retire!! Roommates with Patton, Logan and Roman now and I love being with them so much. And. Dean and Remus are still around. Well then. Whatever. I work a nice job at an animal care center with Patton and I have my friends and I’m learning to be more open and things are going well for now. Not bad for a life.

-Logan:

Toddler to child: Parents go to work most of the time and I see them every other weekend. Who cares about everyone else in kindergarten I have my books and Crofters. Oh hello Patton.

Grade school: I’m smarter than everyone else and I know it. Patton is a wonderful companion. I’m doing well for my age. 

High school: Virgil and Roman are interesting. Remus needs to chill. Virgil no let me lay some facts down for you because you are valid you hear me. Oh! Oh my gosh! I met this amazing student and he makes me feel special and happy! I think I love him! - It hurts but that’s fine- 

College: I’m coming for those degrees! Patton needs to stop asking me to leave my boyfriend. He doesn’t understand how important this man is to me! I can stand a little pain! Wait what happened to Patton. Virgil? Roman? Ok. Wait. Shit. I’m an idiot. I can’t believe it took me this long to figure out - I’m such an idiot it doesn’t matter how knowledgeable I am I’m still a gullible moron when it comes to relationships and everything my ex has ever done and said to me is all my fault because I fell for his manipulations-

Adulthood: Ok. I trust my therapist and my friends when they say it’s not my fault and that it’s alright. What I felt with my ex wasn’t love and I’m not a moron for falling for him. I can always start over. Like with the bookstore I now own with my receptionist Dean. Apparently he knows Virgil huh. They frequently bicker whenever Dean goes to their animal care center to buy snake feed so that’s interesting. My parents have retired and are now trying to make up for lost time with me? I appreciate it I suppose. Now I live with my companions and contact my family and things are alright.

-Roman:

Toddler to child: Parents love me and I love them! They buy me anything I want! They support my dreams! But Remus keeps bullying me and I’m not sure how to feel about him. He’s still my brother

Grade school: I have so many friends! Extra-curricular activities because I’m really talented! Remus has new friends to cause trouble with oh boy. More people to bully me the better for him ugh. Virgil especially creeps me out. I’m getting a little concerned as to how my parents are treating Remus but I’m sure he’s fine 

High school: Ok. So. Apparently telling my parents that I like guys is a bad idea. - That’s going to scar on my back for sure- They treat me completely differently from when I was a kid? And I met Patton and Logan and I think I might be a tad spoiled by my family. Also Virgil’s here but he’s getting more and more ok. I’ll hang out with him now. - I’m ungrateful and a disgrace and I’m not as creative as I ever thought I was- 

College: Welp. I’m moving out. I wish Remus the best of luck because I think he’s coming too. My parents officially suck as much as Logan’s current boyfriend. He needs to dump him. Wait I’m a YouTuber now! Yay! - I’m getting more and more stressed and overwhelmed from debt and I fear rejection from my fans and friends the moment I say something out of line and the moment I run out of good ideas for them- Oh shit Patton what happened!! Logan what did you do!! Virgil you shut the fuck up!! Remus you’re not helping!! - I could have prevented this why didn’t I realize this earlier am I that self absorbed-

Adulthood: Yes I’m a full time YouTuber and actor and singer now!! Patton, Logan and Virgil live with me now and they even work close together! Remus is now a comic book artist and novel author, hope he doesn’t traumatize people too much. Logan’s receptionist Dean sure is a character.  I still fear rejection- but I know things will be good for now!

-Deceit:

Toddler to child: Where are my parents. Why is the orphanage so small and why do people look at me weird when I talk. I’m never getting adopted.

Grade school: Well, I’m adopted now I guess. No way in hell am I telling them everything that happens daily in my life. Why do my new parents think my bedroom door needs to be removed. They took my little garden snake because it wasn’t a ‘normal’ pet? Hm. Why hello there Virgil and Remus. Hello Roman. 

High school: That’s it. I’m getting piercings, I’m getting a huge tattoo, I’m kissing snakes. Screw my parents. I don’t need to let anyone know anything about me. My opinion doesn’t matter anyways and everything about me is going to be bad no matter what so why bother So they fear us, Virgil? Good. Wait. Where are you going?

College: I’m moving out officially. Remus is in a different college. -Don’t miss him at all. I shall play along to society’s whims for now and get a degree and never use it. Got rid of the tracker under my car. I don’t think I’ll ever contact my parents again.

Adulthood: I think I’m doing rather well as a citizen. Remus is my new apartment mate oh god. But he is now a comic book artist and novel author so at least he has a job. Perks of working in a bookstore with Logan. That nerd’s one of Virgil’s new friends? And emo boy now works in the animal care center next to us? Whatever. I’ll leave them be unless I need some new snake feed. Things are peaceful now for me at least.

-Remus:

Toddler to child: I want my parents to look me in the eye and tell them they care more than just throwing fancy stuff into my arms dangit. Whatever I’ll just take it out on Roman and the kids in the playground.

Grade school: -If you can’t say anything nice don’t open your ugly mouth ever at all- So I’m disturbed? So my thoughts aren’t normal? Fine! Not like I can control what comes into my head! Let me bully Roman some more with my new buds Virgil and Dean! - freaking star child has everything I hate him so much what will it take for my parents to have their attention on me I’ve caused so much trouble in school why won’t they care-

High school: Roman what the hell happened?? I was planning your murder but now I’m not sure how to feel?? Damn you?? Uh?? We’ll move out?? And where the hell is Virgil going again?? Dean?? He’s leaving us? Alright. That’s it. That’s it - my grades and reputation are shit and my parents always assume the worst of me anyways so I’ll just sleep around with a bunch of guys every other week for quick cash and drag my family’s name through the mud and have fun because I don’t hate myself completely but my ideas are bad and I’m bad and- 

College: Fuck you mom and dad! Roman and I are moving out!! I’m gonna become a comic artist and write terrifying stories that’ll make Satan cry!! - Ugh Dean’s in another college dammit I miss him- Roman what is it this time someone get run over or something? What happened with that nerd Logan?  Is Virgil alright- What the fuck happened? - the star child is crying why are you crying why am I crying why do I feel like this I don’t care I shouldn’t care I hate you I hate me-

Adulthood: My ideas are selling! I’m a comic book artist and a novel author! Dean is my new apartment buddy! My brother is still some fancy theater geek but who cares! And the store Dean works at sells my books! And Virgil’s in the animal care center next door! I met his new friends officially and they’re boring lol. I really like where my life’s heading!

#thomas sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides human au #remus sanders #sympathetic remus sanders #duke remus #deceit #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit sanders #virgil sanders #anxiety sanders #logan sanders #logic sanders #morality sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #princey sanders #roman and remus #creativitwins #my art #my post #very long post #long post #janice sanders #janus sanders

[like-that-one-weird-dog-thing]

If I Could Burn This Down

[1] . . . [2] . . . [3] . . . [4] . . . [5] . . .

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Ok no, but I just have to rant on this. It’s been consuming my thoughts y’all, I just can’t stop thinking about it all.

So, this is about the Dream SMP- I recently got introduced to it through some friends and the animatics by SAD-ist were really what sold me to it. I’ve been trying to catch up on it all(god, it’s so good but also such a mess, I don’t think I’d have it any other way) and I just. So many thoughts y’all.

That ending tho, y’all that’s really what started this train of thought. It was so good. Like, I’ve seen quite a few posts on why it was predictable, not the unexpected twist Dream promised, and just. Not that good of an ending and honestly that’s a matter of opinion so I shouldn’t really care(and I don’t. much) but I still want to rant on the direct opposite side because fuck it I have thoughts!!!

obv spoilers for recent dream smp actions

tw for discussion of death in-universe and indirect discussion of suicidal ideation/possible intention

boi did I not think I’d add those tws to a post about a minecraft rp server of all things, but here I am

stay safe y’all

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This will mostly be on Willbur’s decent, for those wondering, because it’s just. there’s so many things to that ok. I just, this is just gonna be a ramble, just for me to get my thoughts out there.

So, I’ve seen a lot of things about Willbur- his decent into madness being the main thing. Mostly, it all seems to boil down to one thing- his desire for power and his view of Tommy being what led to him, well, blowing up L’manburg. But I personally don’t see that as the full story. Sure, it’s part of it, but it just feels incomplete to me. What would kickstart it? how would he go from adoring Tommy and only wanting L’manburg so that Tommy could be safe, to blowing it all up and betraying Tommy?

How could he go from that to doing the one thing that would hurt Tommy the most?

I personally think the answer is simple. Tommy said it in his recent stream, welcoming ConnerEatsPants to the server, after all. 

Trauma makes people vulnerable.

And Willbur has gone through a lot of trauma.

So, quite a bit of this depends on your view of how the world works. I don’t know if it’s ever been stated as cannon, but the deaths are specifically what I’m talking about.

They die so so much, after all. How does the work in-world? are they actually dying, and there’s a respawn function to the world(as in, it’s been a fact of life in-universe that you can die and come back) or do they just get injured, as a number of animatics/animations have chosen to depict it as? Are they being dragged back home by their comrades, fatally injured, just to heal?

Personally, I don’t see that likely as the in-universe explanation. They come back, after all. Come back and continue fighting, minutes after they’re killed. You can’t just use injuries as an excuse there, to explain it away.

So, I’ll follow this along with the ‘respawn exists’ assumption. Still, that brings up more questions. How did Willbur and JSchlatt permanently die, then? do you have to die in such a traumatizing way(your father killing you, all the people who may have once been your friends cornering you to kill you as your hopped up on drugs) that you no longer want to go back? That something deep inside you snaps and your connection to this world breaks, or is it something else? Does someone else pull the strings?

Is Dream the one, in-universe, to decide when you can respawn and when you die permanently? He’s closest thing to a god they have, after all, with access to creative mode and final say over the lands- the true ruler of the world. Is it him?

And still, there’s more questions. What is it like? How does it feel? is the corpse left there, or does it just disappear, leaving your stuff behind? maybe your body crumbles to dust, maybe it fades away before your eyes

Is dying just like Willbur described? Nothingness until you awake, only a taste of true death, a few seconds to experience it, to make you fear it? Is the pain all in the before, or do you feel in the after too, phantom aches and pains as you go about your life, the time you died a memory forever haunting you?

Does the end of your life hurt? Do you feel yourself being brought back to life? Does that hurt?

No matter what you decide, the fact of the matter is, it’s all still traumatizing. Being injured severely enough that you have to drop all your items and flee to heal up, or dying from those that you are always forced to interact with- it leaves a mark. Your left different than you were before. And other people can take advantage of this.

Who fed into all of Willbur’s manic thoughts, who fed into his idea that he was all alone? Him against the world, no one safe anymore. Who let him rot in those ideas?

Dream.

He did, afterall, give him the gunpowder for his eleven and a half stacks of tnt. He made a deal with him, that no matter what, even if he won, even if Willbur took L’manburg back, even if he became president and could make a safer place for them all, make a safer place for Tommy, even then.

The place would be blown sky. high.

He feeds into Willbur’s ideas, his thoughts, he eggs him on and pushes him forward(there is a traitor among you, one that you least expect). What if Dream was the one who ruined Willbur’s button, the first time? Trying to keep him tagging along, trying to drag him through the dirt to really show him, this is how it is, you are alone, no where is safe- no one is safe, everyone is against you. Dream is a sort of god, in the server. The land is his. He wouldn’t want L’manburg to stand, and he would want the one who had started it thoroughly against the rebuilding of it, before he had it destroyed. It would be a blow to morale, after all, for their leader to no longer believe in the dream that he’d once had. It would sow doubt, would make them think maybe, maybe it wasn’t a good idea, Willbur made it and he’s against it now.

They think he’s gone mad, true, but that doesn’t change that fact that Willbur started L’manburg. If the stress of it all was enough to make him lose it, couldn’t the others too?

Maybe it’s not worth it.

He destroyed it.

And here’s the thing, when Phil shows up?

It feels like a catalyst. A kick, a shove. Whatever you want to call it.

One last push by Dream, to force Willbur to do it. 

Before, it follows. Willbur rants, he panics, he shakes. He stresses over it all, stares at that damn button. He made a deal, but should he really do it?

Tommy tried to give him the Presidency, tried to give him the power, a sign of trust. Surely, if Tommy trusted him after all that he’s done to him...

Surely, he can back away. Not ruin it.

Right?

He hesitates.

Then Phil comes. His father. He tries to talk him out of it, tries to get him to see sense. But in the end?

He’s the one final thing that Willbur needed to see, before his resolve hardened. Before the ache settled solid and true.

(Phil is panicking, and Willbur sees it. 

He doesn’t trust him either, does he?)

Willbur is alone, and everyone is against him.

He hits the button.

See, the compound of events, the repeated deaths(injuries) he’s suffered all throughout his life, the war, they all add up. Whether death hurts or not doesn’t matter in the end, whether they’re dying or not doesn’t matter, because it all still hurts. The before hurts.

And you can only be hurt so many times before you can’t stand to be hurt anymore.

L’manburg caused Willbur so much hurt. The war, the suffering- it wouldn’t have happened without L’manburg.

All that was left for him was hurt, and all he wanted was for that hurt to leave.

With L’manburg in ruins behind him(he survived the blast, did he intend to? He never wore armor), Willbur demands for Phil to kill him. His father.

He doesn’t beg. He’s desperate, it’s obvious by the way he slams his fist down as he screams for it, but he doesn’t beg.

Instead, he eggs Phil on.

Just what Dream did to him.

He throws his arms towards L’manburg, shoves it into Phil’s face, makes him look.

Willbur did that. He is the cause. Phil should kill him, everyone wants him to.

It was just Willbur. Just Willbur, Willbur and all his hurt, just him against the world.

No one was on his side and he was alone.

Willbur works to anger Phil. Instead of begging for death he demands it and throws his sword at his father’s feet. He forces him to make a choice. Him or the world, because that was what it really was. 

Willbur was alone. Him against the world. Would Phil choose him?

Look at me, it seems to scream, look at me and what I’ve done, look at the hurt I’ve now caused.

Where do you stand?

In the end, even if later, Phil seems to be good friends with Techno(another traitor, the traitors Techno Phil, it’s Techno, Phil, it’s Techno and he’s got eight whithers ready to go, you better hurry, run along now, before it’s too late), even if he doesn’t want to...

He chooses the world.

Phil kills Willbur, and Willbur gets to escape the hurt.

Is that what he wanted all along? Is that were his madness stems? The hurt of a boy watching children fight in a war, the hurt of a boy watching what is basically his brother fight and die over and over and over again, all for an idea he’d had...

Is that where it begins? Or where it ends?

L’manburg, the start and the end?

L’manburg, his symphony of hope, with a finale of agony.

It’s a predictable ending, maybe, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t fit. Techno may have been obvious, but that doesn’t mean there might not have been hope for otherwise, hope for a better future, hope for him to change his mind and hope for his affection for them to overrule his opinions and values of government.

I wonder, did Tommy ever see Techno and think of Willbur?

Did Willbur ever see Techno and think of Tommy?

Two siblings, seeing something that could have been(Tommy, lets be the bad guys) and something that will never be(Willbur, do you hear yourself?)

I wonder, did Willbur ever even give real thought to how the destruction of L’manburg would hurt Tommy? Did he?

Or was he too wrapped up in his thoughts, his own pain. Too wrapped up in the thoughts fed by Dream and the ideas burning through his skin.(the button might not even work -do you want to risk that?) 

Through it all, did he think?

And this is not to say that Willbur is absolved of his guilt, of the crimes he has committed. He giggles about Techno killing Tubbo, he pushes for Tommy and Techno to fight in a pit, where Tommy is almost certainly going to die(another death added to hundreds of tallies), and he laughs as they fight.

(It stays in the pit)

He is not innocent. Explainations for his actions don’t erase those actions. It does, however bring even more questions into the mix.

The Pit.

Techno and Willbur’s views on Tubbo’s death(I was peer pressured), Tommy’s refusal to accept that then accepting his own death at Techno’s hands.

Has it become trivial to Willbur and Techno? An expectation to Tommy? Is Tubbo really unfazed, or hiding any emotions over his death? Do you choose to believe he died, or that he was injured to near death by Techno? Which is worse? If death is nothingness, the pain of before gone, washed away, than isn’t it better to die then to be injured? Is Tommy upset about Tubbo learning once more what death is, dealing with the pain of the before, or is he mad that Techno didn’t finish the job and let Tubbo be healed instead of respawned?

Did he die, or just get injured?

Another thought on the broken button, was it Dream, or was it Willbur? Willbur, doing one last thing to try and cling to him life before.(surely, if he broke the button, the urge to run to it would leave him?) Did he ever regret it, when he finally did push it? I don’t think so

His ghost.

Is it the escape he wanted? Did he want to forget it all, everything that led to hurt and was hurt? Is his description of death just what he wanted- wished- it to be? Would it be different for someone else? Does he hate it? Crave to go back to it, to leave the wandering of the world he’s left behind? He’s said he’s wanted to come back to life- does he miss it? Can he feel any of it? The sunlight, the air around him, any of it? Or does the nothingness stick? Is that all he feels?

Does it ache, worse than living ever did?

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#mcty #dream smp #tommyinit #willbur soot #tubbo mcyt #tubbo #willbursoot mcyt #dream #weird dog rambles #weird dog rants #jc this is #a lot longer than I thought it'd be #dlkhfadslfhdasflkasdhf #might post this to my #ao3 tbh but idk if it'd fit #maybe if it does decent here ig #technoblade #ph1lza #philza #dream smp war #tw discussion of possible suicidal ideation/possible intention #listen y'all #I didn't expect my brain to go OFF like this either #it's just #so many thoughts #I have more but it's so LATE- #might add them in the morning #again #if people want to see them or they bug me too much like all this #starts a mess btw

[hmshermitcraft]

Hey there! I’m the Ant (really creative there wow Antho) anon from a while ago with my highschool AU Convex ask. So here’s basically the plot a fanfic idea I have in mind that decided to kinda let someone else to also write or think about.

I was going to write it into a fic but is too busy so yeah, you could use this idea to write a fic about it. Tag me in those posts cuz I kinda want to see those fics if you wanna write about it! (or AnthoAndHisShenanigans on Ao3)

TW// Homophobia, temporary character death, implied violence, typical fae bs that comes w the vex, child neglection

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Highschool AU, Cub and Scar are just 2 teenagers living in a small, homophobic town & are very in love.

They’re basically childhood friends cuz they’re like the 2 rich boys in the town. They’ve been in love w each other since the dawn of time but only started dating a little over a year ago. They needed to hide their relationship to survive so they won’t get killed by homophobes.

Cub’s parents are just busy business people (was trying to kinda put some concorp stuff but I think concorp is more of Cub & Scar thing than someone else’s) so Cub is basically neglected in a sense, even if they tried to make up to it by just spoiling him with money & expensive stuff while Scar is basically an orphan who somehow inherited all his parents’ riches. (don’t look into the fact that Scar can’t technically inherit most of the properties or money since he’s still a minor)

One day Scar got really sick & Cub went to take care of him while Cub’s parents are on a business trip. Both of them just live in Scar’s place the whole time, thinking that they can just be themselves so they kinda just stop being really secret about their relationship since they thought y’know, they’re spending most of their time with just each other.

Cub’s parents was in the process of divorcing & Cub isn’t coping with that well. It also didn’t help that with his parents being more and more distant, he’s being neglected even more. (this doesn’t really add to the plot, it’s just here for angst potential)

But what they didn’t realize is that the whole place was basically being bugged and recorded by some asshole that holds a grudge against them (character open for interpretation cuz I was just gonna put in some one off oc for this)

And when Cub returned from the break he took (Scar’s sickness only got worse at the moment), he suddenly found out that their relationship has been exposed. And knowing how homophobic the people are, they need to get the fuck out of the town.

They both tried to escape but Scar was still very ill & well it wasn’t exactly ideal to be literally hunted down by people no matter where they go. They ended up in a forest, dead in the night & don’t even have a destination other than to get away from everything.

And… let’s just say that Scar didn’t exactly survived & Cub was almost in the exact state too.

But the vex saw some potential in them, that it’ll be a shame to have both of their talents being wasted & basically offering Cub an option, to let both of them survive & get to somewhere safe, but their souls basically belong to the vex.

Cub agreed to it but also asked for a favor, for Scar’s memories to be wiped out because Cub doesn’t want him to remember all the suffering he went through, so Cub can live knowing that Scar won’t remember all the pain Cub “put him through”. In exchanged of it, the entity took Cub’s youth.

Both of them woke up in a completely new place (ayeeee Hermitcraft!), Scar with no recollection of anything, not even anything about Cub, other than a fake identity (still going by the name Scar but different backstory) the vex gave him & Cub, who still remember everything, having to live through the trauma all by himself because he can’t tell everyone about the deal w the vex, especially not to Scar.

Things went normally at first, both of them starting from square one but the past seems to start haunting Scar, just flashbacks of his life’s last few moments before being promptly resurrected.(btw Scar would be absolutely traumatized if it wasn’t for the memory wipe)

Scar started going through identity crisis (is it the right word? Idk) as he realized there’s something more to him than what he knows & was trying to figured out what happened to him & it was starting to drive him insane. Cub, who hasn’t been in the contact w the vex ever since the incident (it’s about months after the deal), went out his way to find it again, to voice his anger about playing around with Scar’s mind and tearing him apart. The vex only smiled, a smile that put it clear that this is the price they have to pay.

Cub can choose between ending Scar’s pain by letting him remember a twisted version of the memory, one where Cub is the one that actually killed Scar by beating him to death, or just simply not… to just let Scar descend into madness.

Cub chose something else, to basically trade himself away, his physical form & the “permission” for the entity to take over his mind or his body any time it want, to do whatever it want for Scar to finally have a normal life…

#hermitshipping #submission #cubfan tag #gtwscar tag #convex #angsty #homophobia tw #death tw #ableism tw #body horror tw #abuse tw #mental illness tw #anthosaidsmth

[sepublic]

WandaVision Finale!

           Okay, that finale was AMAAAAAZING! Everything about it… Particularly, I love that with all of these references to American, black-and-white television shows, we got a bit straight out of what felt like The Twilight Zone! Let me tell you, when Dottie came up to Wanda and started begging to be with her daughter, bargaining, playing with the role and trying to appeal, even offering up her daughter for the antagonistic, demonized role of bully, just to be with her; That was INCREDIBLY messed-up and really shook me up, as did everyone else in that sequence! It was utterly wonderful, and really, the entire premise and set-up DOES seem like a Twilight Zone episode; Perhaps the final homage/allusion by this series?

           The Vision battle was great, some much-needed action and usage of Vision’s powers that we needed. I love how Vision manages to talk down the White counterpart with logic and existential thought… The philosophical, almost deconstructive way Vision deals with stuff and life isn’t cold, but rather appreciative, like someone taking apart a clock and marveling in how its put together; They don’t rage at the clock for no longer upholding the undefinable illusion it used to have… 

          And of course, the idea of ‘illusion’ I feel applies to Westview as well. The difference being that Westview’s mechanisms are inherently immoral, but the way Vision gets down to the basics and fundamentals of things in his almost wondrous, childlike curiosity- It’s great. He’s questioning everything, but in anticipation and acceptance of an answer, he does not view the world with cold disdain the way someone like Ultron would.

           The Theseus Ship paradox was a wonderful discussion, as was the suggested answer that either neither of them are the ship, or they both are! As is Vision’s constantly poetic talk of how the ship is more the experience and memories, so if they’re attached to either, then sure- They’re both the same! I love for a hypothetically cold android, this dude is so poetic and marveling at everything. He should be a writer, a poet… But that’s not happening anytime soon; But it doesn’t mean it won’t EVER happen, either! As Vision realized, they’ve said goodbye before, only to say hello again… I love his little way of looking through and exploring loopholes in apparent certainties, both at the end and with White Vision.

           Not gonna lie though, I half-expected/anticipated for White Vision to emerge with Ultron’s mind, once Vision reawakened those memories, and I have to wonder where he is. I was kind of hoping both Visions would merge together to complete a true one, given how both acknowledge that the other has something that they don’t. White Vision is still out and about though; And I like the clever usage of color, with blue representing the cold and mechanical Ultron side of him, and yellow being the Mind Stone, but most importantly Vision. And I LOVE the idea that Scarlet Witch has the last remainder of an Infinity Stone within her, preserved like her love for Vision; Some things you can’t truly eradicate, Thanos!

           That reference to the Darkhold from Agents of SHIELD was great, and I imagine it’ll come into play now that Wanda’s taken it from Agatha. How Agatha got it, I have to wonder; But that’s a story for another day, I presume. I guess she’s been brainwashed truly as Agnes and is doing her own thing in Westview, without anyone to realize she doesn’t quite belong; Or maybe they will? What a wonderfully poetic, vicious fate for her character- She faked it all, and now she gets to be real! The idea of playing a ‘part’ is just a fascinating motif in this show for me, and I’m sure there’s some philosophical stuff I could dredge up about that term, ‘stories’, from my Philosophy class.

           Wish we got some more resolution with Darcy, and Hayward kind of just left; But I do appreciate how we could’ve gotten a bit of an all-out brawl, with the SWORD agents targeting Agatha and how she alludes to the Salem Witch Trials! Also the allusion to the Sorcerer Supreme, AKA Doctor Strange, was great- And things are still complicated with how Wanda more maturely vouches to save those agents, even if they’re also against her… She knows that people’s dislike and hostility is pretty valid. It’ll be interesting how she’ll own up to the ‘role’ of Scarlet Witch now, as a lot of her vilification came from her own actions, admittedly. I imagine she’s going to try and it do it on her own terms, see what loopholes in the requirements she can exploit- Much like her husband Vision would! Also, Tommy and Billy having to dissipate when Vision at least understands and accepts IS messed up, so I can see why Wanda feels the need to rescue her children, who definitely don’t deserve this.

           I do have to wonder if that last scene is a hint that Wanda hasn’t fully moved on, or if she HAS, but of course Tommy and Billy don’t deserve to die just for her character development! Really that dilemma and sad ending was handled so well, I half-expected Wanda to isolate the Hex to just her house, or maybe focus all of the energy of the Hex into maintaining JUST Vision, Tommy, and Billy. Maybe she’s consulting her chapter in the Darkhold for info on that? Either way, I like how she’s prepared and kept all of her assets in place in case she ever needs them, such as Agatha, now Agnes! There’s a very spiteful and utilitarian way she handles herself now, reminiscent of a villain who keeps tabs on their friends and enemies; Wanda seems to be doing the typical steps of a villain, but hasn’t exactly committed to it; And maybe never will, again, it’ll be interesting how she exploits her role as Scarlet Witch. I love the callback to those runes, how a scene that could’ve been written off as magical world building foreshadowed and came back into play; Such a simple and obvious trick, but one I always fall for because I’m so invested and IN the world!

           Also, I think that lake Wanda lives by, might be the one where Sokovia’s remains landed? If so, then that’s incredibly fitting; A watery grave for her home and memories, huh? I wonder if Pietro, the real one, is buried here- It makes sense, Agatha alludes to Pietro not being buried in North America (nor South America if you want to get into technicalities), so of course their home country, or what’s left of it, is ideal! The site where he died, lowkey; Although that was arguably several miles above, but still. This third-world country that everyone dismissed and ignored has now had a major legacy that is felt across the world… It’s been heard, huh? I’m not sure why Wanda’s maintaining that illusion of herself, is she just practicing, maybe creating a front in case anyone notices activity, checks out, and then assumes it’s ‘just’ some random lady?

           I can only imagine how Doctor Strange will tie into this! Probably with the Nexus of All Realities and the Darkhold, and of course the Scarlet Witch’s role as a potential threat to the Sorcerer Supreme; And hopefully with what we’ve seen of Agatha making note of magic belonging to the ‘deserving’ and being able to take it from others… Baron Mordo, perhaps? Maybe he’ll make his return interrogating Agnes as he tries to track down the Scarlet Witch, seeing her as a threat… Dang, now Mordo’s reminding me of Emperor Belos from The Owl House, with the whole belief that after chaos and bloodshed, magic should instead be isolated to only the deserving who prove themselves, and whatnot! Now I’m even in MORE interested and hopeful for Mordo with this comparison!

           Likewise, the allusion to the Nexus in that commercial made me wonder if New Jersey would be the location for the Nexus of All Realities in the MCU, but now that Wanda’s left, it’s possible she’ll track down its location to Louisiana, just in the comics! Still hoping for Man-Thing in the MCU, maybe we’ll get a setup for him! I’m telling you Feige, this is your chance to make a Frankenstein/Iron Giant type of film, a misunderstood monster story to incorporate into the MCU, what with your exploration of new genres beginning particularly in Wandavision! Also iirc the Darkhold has a corrupting influence on those who read it… But the last people who did were regular humans, is Scarlet Witch above such things? Or will the Darkhold mess with her, too- An external force that disrupts her character development by corrupting her? I’m just in even more anticipation for Multiverse of Madness to be trippy and horrifying.

           Overall, what a WONDERFUL conclusion, and an incredibly satisfying finale to this series, while still paving the way for new stories! It seems Photon’s story has just begun, now that Nick Fury has sent a Skrull to invite her; Maybe for the Captain Marvel sequel? I’d assume the sequel deals with the fall of the Supreme Intelligence, which takes place before 2014; Nine years before Monica gets her powers! Something had to have happened to lead to the Kree’s peace treaties with everyone that angered Ronan…Well, we’ll see!

          And White Vision, we’ll see what happens with him, what existential crisis he’ll get into, poor dude; He’s arguably the original Vision, except traumatized and questioning himself! I’m surprised Wanda didn’t go after him, did she assume he was destroyed? Or has she just moved on, focusing on her sons? We’ll have to see… Vision did allude to him reuniting with Wanda, so perhaps Wanda can use her powers to gather the Mind Stone’s scattered atoms within the fragment she holds, and reform an Infinity Stone to truly resurrect Vision, from his white template! Perhaps that’s how the Nexus will come into play, as a place to draw together such cosmic power that was once scattered by the Mad Titan…

           Wish we got to see more of Darcy and Woo, as well as Fietro; Him being confirmed as Ralph was great, as was that little hilarious man-cave segment of his, fitting into what would’ve been his time period. I’m a bit disappointed he’s just some dude, but at least there’s the meta gag… I LOOOOVE Scarlet Witch’s new outfit, it’s such a stylish red dress/cape and crown, love how it’s repeatedly invoked as a symbol for her; Wanda finally gets to own her classic costume, her tiara! The bit where her ‘shirt’ meets the pants reminds me of fangs and the points on her tiara, I love that sharp and threatening visual cohesion! And with all that in mind, here’s hoping to The Falcon & Winter Soldier as our next installment into the MCU! And one day, we’ll finally get that Black Widow movie released… One day!

#wandavision #wandavision spoilers #spoilers #marvel #mcu #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #vision #speculation #analysis #review

[bestworstcase]

"[Rapunzel] stops accepting blame for things that aren’t her fault". I've seen this mentioned before on other blogs talking about Rapunzel's character growth over the series, but I don't understand what it's referring to. Sorry if this is too vague/broad an ask, but what are you thinking of in seasons 1 and 2 when you say that Rapunzel has learned to stop taking the blame for things that aren't her fault by season 3? Apart from Rapunzel's Enemy and maybe QFAD, I can't think of anything.

i think this is one of the more understated things about rapunzel’s characterization in that there is never like, a specific moment where rapunzel Verbalizes acceptance of blame for things she clearly isn’t responsible for, but it still imo informs a lot of her behavior?

and it goes all the way back to the film. right out of the gate we see that guilt tripping and blame passing are two of gothel’s chief weapons: when rapunzel’s feelings get hurt by one of gothel’s “jokes,” gothel chides rapunzel to “stop taking everything so seriously,” which is abuser-speak for “nothing i say is wrong, it’s your fault if you’re hurt.” 

then there’s digs like “oh, rapunzel, you know i hate leaving you after a fight—especially when i’ve done absolutely nothing wrong...” 

and the big one, after gothel loses her temper and yells at rapunzel, and then immediately collapses disconsolately into a chair and says “ugh, great—now i’m the bad guy.” overtly blaming rapunzel for “making” gothel snap at her. (this of course gets called back to at the end of the film, though it’s less a guilt trip there than it is a threat.)

aaaand right before “mother knows best (reprise)” when rapunzel asks how gothel found her, gothel says, “oh, it was easy, i just listened for the sound of complete and utter betrayal and followed that.” this one imo is the clearest illustration of how all this impacts rapunzel emotionally, because she goes from scared/alarmed/startled to just. sagging, in obvious guilt. 

but then of course there’s also the scene right after rapunzel leaves the tower, where we see her oscillating wildly from jubilance to despair and guilt as she frets over what her leaving will “do” to gothel, how mad / upset / betrayed gothel will feel, etc. so even when gothel isn’t there, actively reinforcing this behavior, we can see that rapunzel very much feels that gothel’s feelings are her responsibility—and if gothel is upset, that’s rapunzel’s fault. 

anyway!! all this adds up to rapunzel leaving the tower with this subconscious mindset that all problems are her problems, and we see this expressed very early on in s1. i would even argue as early as before ever after... with both frederic and eugene. 

BEA goes really hard right out of the gate with driving home how restless and uncomfortable rapunzel feels in corona; how stifled she is, and how badly she wants to go out and explore the wider world. but it also shows how hard she tries to stuff it down, because her success as a princess is “important to [her] dad.” she tries to bring up her discontent with eugene, but in a roundabout way so as to avoid actually saying she’s unhappy—and then when he says that he’s perfectly happy and content, rapunzel takes a deep breath and agrees with him. it isn’t overt text, but she’s still in “managing other people’s feelings” mode, and there’s a reason the only person she is honest about her own feelings with is cassandra—because cassandra signals very clearly that she is not going to feel hurt, offended, or disappointed if rapunzel is less than happy in corona. quite the opposite, cass is the one who suggests sneaking out in the first place!

now obviously, neither fred’s nor eugene’s feelings are rapunzel’s responsibility and i think both would be horrified to know that rapunzel feels like it’s her job to make them happy... but that doesn’t really matter, because rapunzel has been trained all her life to do this and that’s not a pattern that just goes away overnight. 

and then also in BEA, we see how quick rapunzel is to castigate herself for doing something that upsets someone else... when eugene proposes and she panics and runs away, her reaction is “i feel horrible about eugene” and to feel guilty/upset about not wanting to marry him Right Now.

aaaand of course caine blaming rapunzel for stuff frederic did goes entirely unremarked upon, partly because things like the hair reveal took priority over that but partly also, in my opinion, because rapunzel just kind of Accepted That because she’s so used to being blamed for everything.

this is sort of a recurring theme throughout a lot of s1. you mentioned RE, but for the sake of completeness—i think the most telling thing in that ep is that, when rapunzel finds out what booing really signifies, her first question is what could i have done to this person?, because the concept that this might be a HIM problem doesn’t even cross her mind. she assumes that it’s her fault he doesn’t like her. 

and then there’s stuff like pascal’s story, which i think is an interesting one because like... frankly, it’s not entirely rapunzel’s fault that she stood pascal up. yes, as the princess she could have stood up at six o’clock on the dot to say no more petitions, i am going to dinner. but also she’s the princess, and she’s busy, and pascal’s story is as much an episode about pascal learning that just because rapunzel is busy that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still love him as much as it is about rapunzel learning how to navigate work/life balance—but it’s also very clear that rapunzel’s perspective is “i have been a HORRIBLE friend and i need to put EVERYTHING ELSE on hold until i have FIXED my TERRIBLE BEHAVIOR” when the reality is more like “rapunzel and pascal are both going through a major adjustment period and need to have a realistic talk about expectations now that rapunzel is, like, training to rule a country.” 

in painter’s block, rapunzel feels so traumatized by the (largely correct) decisions she made in QFAD that she can’t make any decisions at all and falls prey to sugracha’s manipulation, and i personally think this is the beginning of the tipping point for her where she begins to see that hey... she’s just a person, she literally cannot be responsible for every bad thing that happens, she can’t be in two places at once, she can’t fix everything for everyone... and sometimes she needs to prioritize one problem over the other. that’s why the emotional climax of that episode is rapunzel saying “difficult choices are what make us who we are.” that’s her letting go of the horrific guilt she felt about choosing corona over varian, and letting eugene and the others put themselves in danger to save her parents. 

that epiphany carries her through SOTS and enables her to make the tough calls she needs to make re: stopping varian, but it also doesn’t mean that her tendency to blame herself for stuff that isn’t her fault goes away altogether. just look at BTCW: while she’s trying to make sense of how/why eugene could be marrying stalyan, her first instinct is to blame herself. to wonder if maybe this is a response to her kind of sort of turning down his kind of sort of second proposal. 

and the rest of the vardaros arc is like... i would say half rapunzel delaying moving on because she’s scared of what waits for her at the end of the black rock trail (as freebird confirms) and half rapunzel making vardaros’s problems her problems and trying to fix them because she feels responsible. 

curses is... not a good episode (canardist, why) but the plot basically hinges on canardist successfully making rapunzel feel guilty / dubious enough about taking back her own telescope that she starts buying into the curse stuff and psyching herself out. 

*as a sidebar here, there are also instances in this same period of rapunzel acknowledging her culpability in stuff she DID do wrong, for example in under raps—but in these cases, it’s interesting to me to note that her apologies actually aren’t very good apologies. in the under raps example, for instance, she also foists off blame on cassandra (saying basically, well i wouldn’t have interfered and put you in danger if you had told me everything, even though i am terrible at keeping secrets and we both know it). and this makes sense, because gothel certainly did not model good, healthy apologizing habits for rapunzel, lol. so she’s in this weird zone where she tends to feel guilty for everything / feels responsible for other people’s feelings but when she DOES mess up for realsies she also doesn’t really have the skills to navigate a true apology. this poor girl

i would say that RATGT is about the point where rapunzel switches gears from accepting blame (both for things that aren’t her fault, like all this stuff, and for things that are, like when she apologized to cass for being a dick in goodbye and goodwill or when she apologized to pascal for belittling him in king pascal) to sort of... overcorrecting and entering her “i’m right, you’re wrong” phase. RATGT is when she starts overtly shutting cass down, and RATGT is when cass’s injury happens—something so horrific and scary that i tend to think rapunzel just cannot process the guilt. it’s too much, too painful, and not something she is emotionally equipped to hold onto or work through in a healthy way...

...so she shoves it away and blames cass instead, very openly. she transmutes her guilt into anger, lessening the pain she feels. and she sticks to that throughout RDO, throughout the rest of s2, and evidently through the rest of the series given she literally never apologizes for it. which is outside of the scope of what you asked alksdfjklsfd but i tend to think basically, rapunzel is not very good at distinguishing between “i feel guilty, but it isn’t my fault” and “i feel guilty, because it is my fault” so in the process of unlearning the former behavior she also forces away the latter, and at the end of s3 she’s in a place where she needs to re-learn how to feel guilt in a healthy, reasonable way. because guilt isn’t always a bad emotion, sometimes it’s just your brain’s way of saying “i did something bad, and i want to make up for it” and That’s Good. 

#rta #im just rambling but bhjhjfhjdfs #i guess in the broader sense anon #'blame' here doesn't exclusively mean 'feeling guilty' #it also means 'feeling responsible' #anyway this is a bit of a mess but these are my thoughts #Anonymous

[bunnylouisegrimes]

Episode 9 Review (The Future: What Does It Hold?)

Tagging @coldsoba per request

This episode was a headache for me. I was anticipating it, and although it wasn’t entirely bad and it wasn’t the worst, I think this episode highlights all the bad aspects of this season and brings them together. It brings some of the good that this season brought out together as well, but it’s evident to me now that we’re reaching the end so far that the bad is outweighing the good. This episode has me worried about the future of the series, and angry overall. I’m concerned that if this series does continue and has a season 3, it won’t be good, and it will turn into a shit show like The Walking Dead did (they want a season 3, although, based on the low ratings and low viewership, AMC might cancel, no one truly knows yet, especially if BBC and all that other stuff helps boost it).

Before I start this review, I’d like to say right here and now: this is a pretty critical analysis, and possibly has a bunch of unpopular opinions, but I’m saying it anyways. I’m mad, I’m annoyed, and I’m ticked. Last week’s episode ticked me off, this... Oh, man... just know I’m cool if you disagree with me, but I’m hoping by the end you all understand why I feel this way.

Now, don’t get me wrong: like most episodes of this show from this season, despite entire scenes and plot points being bad, it has great moments to enjoy. Did this episode contain lots of action and intensity? Hell yes, and I liked that. Did it stay true to the book ending so far? In a few ways, yes. Pretty much all the ways it didn’t due to the changes they made that were already questionable were the things I didn’t like, which leads me to this: Do I like the direction the story is going, based on what we know and have so far? Hell no. Of course, we don’t know 100% the direction it’s going until next week’s episode, but right now, I’m very on the fence.

Because there is a lot of bad I’m going to discuss, let’s get the good out of the way.

Lou and Vic in the beginning, as per usual, are sweet and I love them. Tabitha and Lou’s interaction was sweet as well. Seeing Charlie frightened and shook was oddly cute, but also funny. And Wayne and Charlie’s interaction... I’m sorry, it was just adorable. I like the idea of Maggie and Vic going to Christmasland together, that was a good choice (although now... I’m uncertain).

To begin the negativity, we’ll start with Charlie and the house scene. I like Charlie confronting his own fears, it’s a very interesting concept. I find it kinda stupid and confusing Charlie wouldn’t know this house exists in his own mind, I mean, it is a part of his own mind, even if it was in the back of it. Why would he not know? Despite that, we’re gonna move onto the meat and potatoes. Now, Cassie’s POV, based on how she was presented in the show (which I still hate, btw, and I am greatly annoyed with how she is not the abuser she was in the book, but I’ve discussed this already a million times), makes sense. We get why she’s pissed, she should be, although I don’t think she understands that her ex-husband had all of this shit happen to him as far as creating Christmasland and becoming a vampire and all that by having a mental snap. It all happened due to his mental pressure. He didn’t have full control (if any control!) over that entire situation. It happened, his life depended on souls and energy from that moment on, and he had to make do with the shitty end of the stick being presented to him. Christmasland is both good and bad, and vampirism is both good and bad, and Charlie has to try to make do with what he can to give himself and his daughter happiness, and focus on the positives. Cassie could’ve maybe given him at least that credit, but she makes it out like, “You’ve brought her happiness in presents and candy, not making her a woman.” Uh... Cassie? Charlie and Millie became vampires out of his control. All this shit happened, how the hell could he reverse all of it? Is there anyway he could? It’s not even explained if he can, but the writers ignore this fact and make it out to be like, “Look, he’s so evil!” Writers, is there anyway he could change these things, even if he wanted to? “Well, no, not exactly, but look, he’s still evil!” So... you’re not even allowing him to have an opportunity to change, and then when he’s stuck in the situation and making the best out of it, even if it isn’t 100% the best way... he’s still super heinous and evil? “Yes!” Okay... whatever... see this is another reason why it annoys me how they’re writing Charlie as “the worst person in the world,” when really, he isn’t. He’s not an angel, but he is not as evil as this show wants to present. Pretty much all of Cassie’s criticisms are valid, but she could’ve at least given Charlie some credit. Nope! But the thing that really bothered me in the back of my mind was how much better this scene would’ve been had they actually written his backstory properly. I kept thinking how much better it would’ve been if an abusive Cassie comes back to haunt Charlie and taunt him, degrading him, and mocking him, how much more sense it would’ve made. And if Millie pointed these things out to him, it might’ve changed his mind some (he would think, “oh, even my daughter kinda agrees with the abuser”). It works here with the way they portrayed her, despite the point I mentioned about Charlie making the best of shit falling flat on Cassie’s end, but it would’ve been 1000% better if they made her an abuser and she scared Charlie, then Millie brings up similar points and Charlie’s POV starts to change a bit.

(Plus, I’d like to add that by doing that, you’re setting potential up for a Charlie redemption arch, and he wouldn’t have to die, Vic and Maggie wouldn’t have to die, and season 3 has interesting potential, and you still have your main characters that we enjoy).

On the topic of this scene, here is a take a friend of mine gathered from it that I definitely can see as well: The point they were trying to make in this scene is that Charlie is a coward. This is their interpretation of Cassie being ‘abusive,’ they didn't leave it out (her being angry at him) like we thought they would. They wanted to give her a concrete reason to hate him so much and call him out for his bad deeds. Also, this house, which was hidden away at the back of his mind, is a mesh of Charlie's fears and his guilt. Based on his facial expressions and his mannerisms, and how he forcefully held Millie, this was all out of fear and guilt for what he did to them that first time and how The Wraith pretty much consumes you. She's literally trying to tell his stupid ass that they can never leave, otherwise, they'll turn to static, which they will. Millie can't go anywhere because she's stuck there and Charlie knows because he was selfish, he robbed her of her future without intending to. Charlie is highkey a yandere, even for his own kid, but it makes sense because he's never really had anything, Also, as to why he’s sort of controlling in a sense: he's driven by fear and also anger if you think about it. Christmasland is how he projects and saving other children because he had a rough and traumatic childhood, he has some serious mental health issues. This I see 100% presented here too, which is a good aspect coming out of this scene. This season does show us a really vulnerable Charlie as they explore his past and give him a breaking point, which we like! But we both definitely agreed that they wanted to make Charlie more of a dick than needed throughout this whole season. Maybe these writers really wanted more drama, especially Manx family drama, through Charlie acting worse? Not so sure. Either way, it gets on my nerves, and it’s almost inconsistent with the narrative they want to spin. They keep going back and forth with “Charlie’s so sad” (which, I would agree, he is, but they even mess that up and somehow still make him look worse) and “Omg he is the worst person ever.” I hope I’ve explained myself well enough in this area, it’s a very complicated and convoluted topic that has me conflicted and annoyed myself.

I think most importantly, the thing that annoys me about all of this Manx family drama the most is: How tf are they gonna “live normal lives” and “escape?” Millie grabbing onto the ornament prevents her from disappearing, which really doesn’t make sense. I’m sure they’ll clarify it next episode, but how is she gonna become a woman and live a normal life? For Christ’s sake, Charlie can barely understand the modern world as an adult man! You think a kid like her is gonna truly enjoy it or understand it? I have my doubts on this and how they’ll write all of that. Plus, she’s a vampire! If she returns human and all the other kids do when their ornaments break, and this is something that confuses me even in the book... where will they go? Oh yeah, they’ll somehow find normal lives! Honestly, it would make more sense to have them move onto the afterlife. Are they gonna keep them human and alive to make them the stars of the show? That possible concept of, “Oh, the kids are gonna be the stars of the show now!” No, writers... just no. Nobody is gonna care about that. Again, it’s a possibility, and it’s a possibility I’m not thrilled by personally. I don’t want them to be the stars. They can be awesome supporting characters, but not the main focus. Idk man, I’m just saying right now, I’m not so sure how this whole concept is gonna work and I fear how they’re going to write it.

Next up: Wayne’s shitty behavior. Wayne is acting like a really big asshole, and it’s getting on my nerves. “He’s now a vampire!” I hear someone say. “Of course he’s acting this way!” Yes, but the reason why it’s especially annoying is because Vic keeps trying and trying to get the point across to him, and it’s all for nothing. We know Vic’s opinions and her heartfelt feelings for her son, and she ends up having to repeat herself when she might as well be taking to the wall. What’s the point? Filler? We already know Vic’s determination is strong. In the book, how Wayne was acting was better. He held onto himself, but he also didn’t, but Vic’s words managed to get across to him quite a few times throughout his journey. This would’ve been much better on screen, but the writer’s were like, “HA HA NOPE!” The scene that really angered me: what was the point of Vic making her speech (which was really nice btw) only for Wayne to not listen... you’d think that’d be the scene where he changes, but the writers decided to turn it into a shock value filler moment (similar to Chris’s death, which, btw, all this nonsense is making his death for near nothing). And, let’s not forget my question from last week.. where is Craig in all of this? Hmmm... guess he decided to take a vacation from helping his biological son, because he’s just gone! Why?! What was the point?! He better at least appear next week, but even then... too late now, buster! Probably should’ve been here earlier! I mean, for real, what was the point of Craig’s character at this point? What a waste of potential...

The worst part imo from this entire episode: Okay, so the writers make Charlie an even worse villain, even giving him those subtle sadistic undertones even as Vic is trying to talk to Wayne (alright, I get it, there’s that element to “saving” Wayne that’s vengeful when it comes to Charlie, but it’s honestly just too much darkness; it’s almost out of character, especially when it’s in a scene like this. I get it, he likes the idea of getting revenge on Vic, but does he have to be THIS dark? That laugh he gave was funny, yes, and I couldn’t help myself but laugh just because of how stupid it sounded, but looking at the reason why he laughed... if anything, he would’ve stood there with a smug smile and say something like, “I told you he loves me more.” They make him way too dark and it really takes away from the fact he is a villain with moral code, but these writers have seemingly forgotten that with the exception of the one scene in episode 7 where he condemns Bing’s rape. Of course, the rapist might be getting a redemption arch anyways, not Charlie, but uh... moving on from all that past shit!). Yeah, as I was saying, they make Charlie darker. Okay, let’s forget my opinions on that for a moment: the characters have the opportunity to make him, this super evil and irredeemable villain, weak to the point he couldn’t get up at all... But Maggie stops him from being in this state? WHAT?! That shit is very out of character for her, and it’s very out of character for Vic to just stop! Vic would’ve persisted, and if the roles were reversed, Charlie would’ve persisted. That’s the thing about them both: they are persistent and protective about their kids. Why did Vic need to stop? “We need to find your son!” MAGGIE! You’ve both tried multiple times already! Focus on Charlie when you have the chance! How stupid are you two?! And better yet: Why would Vic drop the weapon?! She would’ve grabbed it!!!! What the hell is this shit?! I can’t even express how stupid this is... I get you can’t exactly kill him, but you could make absolute certain he would be subdued and unable to even have the chance to get up and grab his weapon. But nope! They need to attempt for the thousandth time to save Wayne in the exact same way, when it has shown not to work. You’d think they’d at least attempt to think of something else, even if their options are limited, but nah, we’re gonna do something very out of character instead... why?

Things aren’t looking too good for Maggie, so I have to ask: is Maggie gonna die? And if so, that is beyond fucking stupid. They set up the potential for a plot with Tabs and Mags for the third season. I didn’t pick up that they officially broke up, rather just separated for now, and... for what?! If she’s seriously gonna die, I’m gonna be extremely pissed. That wasted potential and insult to her character would be so fucking stupid. Yes, she dies in the book (in a different fashion, and it’s probably not that great how she goes there either), but look at all they’ve done for her character, especially giving her a girlfriend, a character that’s become even more important. Her death would be questionably more insulting here for sure!

Overall, while there were things I liked about this episode, I am majorly disappointed and concerned for the future of the series. I’m afraid it will take directions that are not good, and if it does continue, I am afraid it will be a living dead show of sorts. I think the only true way this show can carry on and be good is if all our main most important characters (Vic, Maggie, Charlie, Lou, Wayne, and Tabs) are all alive. Now, Vic and Charlie might be the only exception to this, just because they both do die in the book, and although even that is rough and not the best, it is expectant and I think this show can still be good with Maggie, Lou, Tabitha, and Linda taking care of Wayne (I’m not gonna go into the potential with Millie in this scenario because that’s a rocky topic lol). But if this show follows the path of TWD, where we have a whole new cast of characters you’re not really gonna care about and all the old cast you got to know and love is just gone... that’ll be the cherry on top of this shit sundae. I am excited for the concept of exploring the world of other Strong Creatives, as many rumors speculate the next season will contain, but if the show that explored the world of zombies failed by getting rid of pretty much their whole old cast... what about this show? They’ve already messed up quite a few things I don’t like this season I’ve discussed before, and if they go the route of doing anything that can get worse... I can’t describe how disappointing it would be. Not saying things have to be perfect or my way all the way, but it has to be generally good and enjoyable for everyone. Growing attached to a cast of characters only to erase many of them and focus on a new one is not a way that is good and enjoyable for everyone. AMC: This happened with TWD; for the love of God, don’t let it happen with NOS4A2.

As I said in my last review: let’s hope next week is better, and AMC, for the second time in a row, doesn’t deliver a disappointment of a show.

#nos4a2 #nos4a2 vic #nos4a2 charlie #nos4a2 maggie #maggie leigh #charlie manx #vic mcqueen