#that unhealthy self-isolation despite the fact that you love and care for people is so relatable | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kissesforsatoru · 11 months

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WAS IT A GENERAL YAN WAKA HC- IF SO YES BUF ALSO IF UOU ASK WHICH WAKA SPEFCICALLY BD WAKA BD BUT YOU CAN DO ALL TIMELINES

pairings : wakasa x gn!reader

summary : general yan! bd! waka hc's

⤷ cw : NSFW 18+, general yandere themes, possessiveness/obsessiveness, manipulation, gaslighting, isolation, bullying, mind break, overstim, cock warming, unhealthy relationships.

notes : i got so carried away with this, this might just be my longest hc's yet 😭

- wakasa wouldn’t necessarily be yandere right away, i don’t think; instead, he’d actually be pretty normal with you at first. you know, treat you right and all that other good stuff. the only thing off about him in the beginning is how possessive he is. he can get carried away with love bites and keep sucking sensually on your skin even as you whine for him to stop 'cause that hurts, but he’ll just pop off your neck with a lazy smile and tell you he’s sorry (he’s not). or he’ll glare intensely at guys and girls that got too close to you, all while keeping his arms tightly around your waist. but you think to yourself that it’s not that bad—that’s his only flaw, so it’s okay, right? wrong. sooo wrong.

- with him it’s a slow build, where the longer the relationship between the two of you goes on, the more his red flags start to show, but even when they do, you won’t notice them. wakasa is a very manipulative yandere, and he’ll subtly condition you to think that what he’s doing is normal or that you’re being irrational for lashing out at him. he keeps you nice and wrapped around his finger from the very beginning, making sure that you will listen to him no matter what he does.

- the first really big yandere-like thing he does is isolate you. he’ll tell you he doesn’t like your friends because they’re too touchy or they’re not good for you, he’ll tell you that your family is too controlling and that you should cut them off for continuously meddling in your relationship. you might not notice wakas red flags, but your friends and family certainly do, and they aren’t just going to sit back and let you fall deeper into a toxic relationship, but waka is quick to get them out of your life. he’ll tell you that you don’t need them anyway because you have him—he’s the only one you need, that you’ll ever need. he can take care of you, provide for you, support you, and love you far better than any of them ever could so just forget about them.

- waka is very stalker-ish despite the fact that you’re already his. he’ll have a tracker on your phone so he can know where you are at all times, he’ll have cameras in your apartment so he can know what you’re doing and who comes over, and when you move to his apartment, he’ll put cameras there too. waka will also make multiple social media accounts that he’ll mostly use to stalk you with, but he’ll also use them to rile you up and say vile things to you, spread rumors about you, i'm talking hard core bully you until your self-confidence and sense of self-worth are absolutely destroyed, all so he can have you for himself. he wants to be the only one you trust, the only one you think can properly love you since everyone else seems to think that you're disgusting and unlovable. of course, you don't know about any of this, waka is very secretive about it, so you never find out.

- with how much bullying he puts you through, waka is able to blame his possessiveness on protectiveness instead, telling you that he has to keep everyone away from you so you don't get hurt anymore, and obviously you're going to believe him because he's the only one you can trust. he'll tell you never to leave the house without him unless you absolutely have to, and if you do then you have to tell him where you're going and why you can't wait for him to go with you. he'll keep your neck nice and marked up for when the two of you do go out together so other people get the hint. he's never too far away from you anyway, at least an arm's reach away at all times so he can easily grab onto you whenever he wants. he also constantly reminds you that you're his, and that he's the only one who can love you properly, nobody else will ever be able to compare to him. and if you ever doubt him, he'll just bully you even more to remind you that he's all you'll ever have.

"you're mine, baby. nobody else can take care of you like i do."

"you don't need anyone else, they'll just use you or hurt you, so keep relying on only me, yeah? i'll treat you right like you deserve."

- waka has a lot of experience with sex. he knows all the right places to make someone absolutely writhe and scream under him, but he especially knows how to make you feel good. whether he's using his tongue, fingers, or his cock, it doesn't matter, you'll be seeing stars either way. i don't see waka being the kind of guy that praises a lot during sex, he's much dirtier with his words and likes to tease more than anything else, but if his darling is especially broken by all the bullying, he might just whisper praises in your ear as he fucks you. he shows you his love through his actions, makes you feel good with light kisses all over your body, and all-consuming, sloppy kisses to your pretty mouth. his hands explore your body fervently, rubbing on your most sensitive parts to draw out delicious reactions from you—he adores the sound of your whimpers and moans, absolutely eats them up no matter how many times he hears them. i don't know why, but i feel like he'd like to please you more than he likes for you to please him. i think he might just get more of a kick out of knowing he's pleasing you well, and he does please you well. of course, he loves to fuck you rough and use you however he likes to get off still, but seeing you all jumpy and touch sensitive after he's sucked on you for a while just turns him on like nothing else.

"oh, right there? you like that? does my baby want me to go faster? aw, poor thing. shh, i'll take care of you."

"just lay down, baby. i know you'll feel much better after i fuck you."

- waka takes to sexual punishments more than other kinds of punishments. if you act out, he sees it as you just wanting his attention, so he fucks you to set you straight. overstim is his favorite punishment, i think, because he'll fuck you so dumb you just forget about defying him, all you'll be able to think about is his cock and how good he makes you feel. otherwise, he'll make you either cock warm him or fuck yourself on his thigh as punishment. he'll wait till you're wiggling desperately on him, trying to find a release, and then he'll make you beg him to fuck you. shows you that you can't do anything without him, that you need him to do even the littlest things like please yourself.

- if you do something really bad, like try to break up with him or anything like that, then he'll just lock you up somewhere in his house and leave you there. he won't talk to you or even look at you, he'll just drop off your food and leave again. he can do this for months. he wants to ensure that you won't ever try to do something like that again all while enforcing your dependency on him. isolation is the best way to make a person lose all independence, and waka takes complete advantage of that. he'll wait until you won't even be able to think of leaving him again without having a breakdown.

- honestly yan waka is just a sneaky bastard that uses extreme forms of manipulation to get what he wants, which is actually so terrifying. he's amongst the top scariest tokrev yans.

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stellocchia · 2 years

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Thinking about c!Crimeboys after the stream yesterday...

When it comes to their relationship I think it's obvious that they care so so deeply about each other, but love isn't a fix-all thing. Them loving each other and caring about each other is evident, but so is the fact that the way they both have to go about it is extremely unhealthy. An it's fair to question whether they should actually be around each other.

And, despite the amount of care they have for each other, there is a consistent lack of respect on both sides. More on c!Wilbur's side, but still.

c!Wilbur cares about c!Tommy, but not enough to respect his boundaries, especially surrounding his trauma, not enough to apologize to him, and not enough to ever put him above his own short-term goals. c!Tommy is important to him, he's his anchor, his biggest attachment, literally his emotional rock and he's terrified of letting him go. But because of that he keeps acting like he very much takes him for granted (maybe because he does to certain extent) and never really thinks to show how much he cares.

And it hasn't always been this way, mind you. Pre-Pogtopia and beginning of Pogtopia c!Wilbur did consistently show that he cared about c!Tommy. Heck, even when he was already spiraling hard we have the scene of the button room where he literally stops himself from pushing the button because he doesn't want to hurt c!Tommy and c!Quackity. It's only after his revival that he kinda... stopped.

There is no scene at any point post revival here he showed openly to c!Tommy that he valued him. We, as viewers, know he does. He expressed his fondness for c!Tommy plenty of times. Actually probably more than he ever has before. Talking with c!Ranboo about how great he is, telling the camera that he's a good kid, staring at c!Tommy intently every time he mentioned needing to apologize to someone. We know. But he hasn't expressed as much to the person he should express it to.

And Tommy doesn't view this attachment in a healthy way either!

We know that c!Wilbur is uncomfortable with people calling him "crazy" (or any variation of it, which is very fair might I add) and c!Tommy has consistently disrespected his boundaries on that. He also does consistently keep pushing the role of leader on c!Wilbur and hasn't really ever stopped to ask him if that's what he wants at all.

That said, his brand of unhealthy is rather different from c!Wilbur's. He isn't quite as afraid to show that he cares through actions (hanging around c!Wilbur any time he's wanted, mining stone until he hallucinated for him, bringing him that glass of water unasked, telling him he's always there to do things c!Wilbur asks of him in the last stream) even if he doesn't do as much through words. But that's kind of the problem. He's so busy proving to c!Wilbur that he's worthy of being by his side and that he's useful that he never challenges him. Never pulls him back when he's going to extremes.

Now, of course, it goes without saying that it shouldn't be a teenager's responsibility to be a grown adult's impulse control. But c!Wilbur has quite literally no one else who'll do that for him. C!Phil is distant at best, he cares about c!Wilbur a heck of a lot, but not enough to get actively involved with his life. C!Ranboo is pretty much spineless so, even when they did work together, he never really questioned anything c!Wilbur did until the very end. And there isn't another option. C!Wilbur is really isolated. And c!Tommy has been that voice of reason for him in the past, even if it didn't work out in the end.

And then, of course, there is also the very real problem of them both being self-destructive f*ckers with no self-esteem whatsoever. So they both will go to harmful extremes, and that does impact how they approach their relationship A LOT. Actually, everything I talked about here is a direct result of that.

Anyway, this was a lot of rambling, but the main thing here is: do they care? Yes. Is that enough? From what we've seen so far, no.

#dream smp #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #c!crimeboys #'long post'#relationship analysis #that stream really got me rambling huh?#I did love it though #that's why

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norahastuff · 3 years

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penny for your thoughts on salmondean codependency ?

Sure. Fair warning it’s long (was longer but I stopped myself.)

I think it’s complicated in a show that’s had so many different showrunners because they’ve all handled Sam and Dean’s relationship very differently. In Kripke’s era (s1-5) there was a romanticization of the bond. Sure there was a lot of in-depth exploration of how they wound up at the place they were at, spoiler alert: it was all because of John and his obsessive crusade to find the demon that killed his wife. That’s all he cared about and as a result, Sam and Dean had to be everything to each other. But Kripke had no intention of dismantling that at any point because he was (and always had been) writing a tragedy. Gamble continued that too. There was no room for anyone else in their lives and it would always just be the two of them against the world. So Cas had to go. Bobby had to go.

(Actually, it's funny because Gamble didn't intend this at the time, her plan was to kill Cas off, but by Edlund creating the masterpiece that is The Man Who Would Be King, he not only saved Cas from being seen as a villain, but he also deepened Dean and Cas' relationship in such a profound way and inextricably linked the two of them emotionally. And since Cas was eventually brought back, that laid the foundation for a lot of what their relationship would become.)

Up until this point, there hadn’t really been any significant dismantling of perhaps the more unhealthy parts of Sam and Dean’s relationship. Enter Carver. He stripped things down and started to explore what drove these characters. What they wanted and why they couldn’t have it. It starts with Dean being mad at Sam for not looking for him in purgatory, which sets up the whole speech in the s8 finale of Sam’s guilt about letting Dean down, but the thing is, Dean was never honest with Sam about his year away either. He never told Sam he could have gotten out much sooner if he hadn’t stayed to find Cas. I mean Dean had assumed Sam was up there alone doing God knows what to try to bring him back, and yet still he stayed in Purgatory because things were clear there. He needed Cas. Anyway, I just find that interesting, but Cas isn’t a victim of Sam and Dean’s relationship in s8.

Who gets the honour of being cast aside? That would be Benny and Amelia, two characters they introduced in s8 specifically to highlight that Sam and Dean’s relationship doesn’t allow for anyone else to be a significant part of their life. I mean that’s nothing new, we’ve watched that happen many times before. Lisa even said as much to Dean. The thing is this time? It’s framed as a truly sad thing. That moment at the end of 8x10 when Dean has just ended things with Benny and Sam leaves Amelia, and they’re sitting alone drinking beer and watching tv is such a hollow empty moment. This is not what they want. But it’s the way things have to be.

I’m actually fascinated by Sam and Dean’s conversation in the church in the s8 finale. Not so much Dean’s assertion that there is no one else he would put before Sam, but more so what provokes it, which is Sam saying “who are you going to turn to instead of me. Another angel? Another vampire?” See the thing is Dean saying he would always put Sam first is not news. We know this and it’s not really an unhealthy statement in itself either. A lot of people would put their sibling above anything else, not less a sibling who you raised and is the most important person to you. But in this context? After what Sam said? It just highlights how unhealthy they are if Sam believes that Dean having other people in his life means he doesn’t love him enough. That he’s a disappointment to him. That’s so profoundly fucked up.

(Note, Dean tells Sam that he killed Benny for him but he doesn’t say anything about Cas. I think like I said before, this is because Cas and Dean’s relationship has largely existed out of the Sam and Dean stuff up to this point - Sam and Cas don’t even really have much of a relationship yet besides both of their connections to Dean.)

And then from here, things start getting steadily worse. But we also keep being shown how bad they are. Dean lying to Sam, taking away his free will by letting Gadreel possess him. Dean sending Cas away, Kevin dying. It’s all awful. The whole “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you line” from 9x01 isn’t really said by Dean, it’s Gadreel, but that is how Dean feels. He does think that’s all he’s good for. And over the season we’re shown how much of himself and what he truly wants he’s had to give up because of his ingrained “Save Sammy” and “Sammy comes first” mentality. It’s always been this way for him. In 9x07 we see that he had found a happy home, a good father figure, and his first love, a first love might I add that he had to leave behind with no real explanation because Sam needed him, and Sam comes first.

I mean just one episode earlier we had him rushing out the door elated about seeing Cas and spending time with him, only for their time together to come to sad and melancholic end when Dean once again leaves Cas behind without any real explanation, because despite what he wants Sammy comes first. What he wants doesn’t matter.

See I think after the Gadreel stuff comes out is where the narrative starts to get a little wonky for me. You can clearly see that this was intended to be a shorter story that they ended up stretching out to a much longer one because of renewals. There’s also the fact that this is a formula show so they can’t necessarily be separated for longer than an episode or two. S10 is a rough one to get through at times, I think the themes still mostly hold up but it’s a rough one to get through.

S10 highlights all the connections that Dean has, Cas, Charlie, Crowley even, but Sam doesn’t really have those bonds in the same way. For Sam it’s just Dean, so he goes down a reckless destructive “do anything to save Dean!” path and so many innocents pay the price, and ultimately with the release of The Darkness, the whole world.

They skirted right up to the edge of exploring just how toxic and dangerous their relationship had become in the season 10 finale.

DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A..a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world.

I can’t say evil is the right word, they were never evil, but they were wilfully blind to everything and everyone else when it came to saving each other. S10 tested my love for the show because after watching it, because there was certainly a feeling that the two of them had become the villains of this story. And don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with that, it’s just after 2 seasons of this I can’t say I had a lot of faith that this was going to be properly addressed or if we were going to keep going in circles around it. Keep being shown, it’s bad and then nothing much being done to fix it. Your mileage may vary on how it was handled, but I think s11 did a relatively ok job considering it wasn’t the end of the story, and the show needed to keep going.

See from Dean’s side a lot of the codependency rests on 1. His father’s orders to always save Sammy 2. His low self-esteem where he sees himself as nothing but a blunt instrument. 3. His guilt at not being able to perfectly fulfil every familial role in Sam’s life 4. His belief that no one could choose to love him but family has to love you. 5. The unhealthy example of what it should look like to love someone that he got from John. You give up everything but them.

For Sam (and honestly it’s not as clear for me as Dean’s side is so feel free to correct me/disagree on this) 1. Everytime he’s tried to leave and create his own life it’s never ended well. 2. His guilt over wanting freedom and a normal life when he was younger (I’m referring specifically to Stanford era here) 3. His guilt over everything Dean has given up for him. 4. John. 5. Jess.

Ultimately it all comes down to isolation. They both had to be everything to each other, and the deeper they got into this fight, the more people that they lost, the tighter they clung to this notion of family and brothers. I think s11 (and 11x23 in particular) was an important turning point, both for Sam and Dean’s relationship, as well as for them as individuals. Because they weren’t alone there anymore. Cas was there. Sam let Dean walk to his death. Of course, it would devastate him, but he knew it was what had to be done. And he didn’t walk out of that bar and go back to the bunker alone. He had Cas, he had someone who cared about him and wanted to help him and talk to him. Sure Dean asked Cas to take care of Sam for him (you know after Cas offered to walk to his death with him) but Sam let him. He let him be there for him. We didn’t get to see much before the BMOL showed up and blasted Cas away, but still, we saw enough.

I think that’s a significant difference to note why their relationship was different in the Dabb era. It wasn’t just them anymore. Cas was an important member of their family and given a level of importance he’d never been given before and couldn’t have been when the story they were telling was of the dangers of their codependency. Mary was back. Eventually, Jack would become a part of their unit too. Just the two of them wasn’t enough for them anymore. This is made abundantly clear with all of Dean’s desperate attempts to get Cas to stay in s12, followed by his inability to keep going when they lose Cas and Mary in s13. Similarly, Sam really struggles when they lose Jack and fail to get Mary back later in the season.

Another big moment is Dean letting Sam go alone to lead the hunters against the BMOL in 12x22 while he stays back to try and reach Mary. Like he tells Mary, he’s had to be a brother, a father and a mother to Sam and he never stopped seeing him as his kid, but in that moment he makes a choice. He lets Sam take charge and he shows that he trusts him and believes in him. He knows he can handle it.

Sometimes it’s not even a character growth thing. Sometimes having other people there stops you from making destructive choices even though that’s still your first instinct. I’m thinking specifically of 13x21 after Sam was killed. Dean would have run headlong into that nest of vampires and got himself torn apart, but Cas was there to stop him. He was able to make him see reason.

Basically, I think that for a long time, they thought the only relationship they could have was each other, which then became a self-fulfilling prophecy because their desperate attempts to keep each other around led to them losing the people around them. They eventually started to learn that that wasn’t true, they could have more, they were allowed to want more, and that it wasn’t an either-or situation. Dean didn’t have to choose between Sam and Cas. They didn’t have to choose between each other or Jack. The same goes for Mary. Different relationships can coexist without threatening each other, and not say that their relationship in s12-15 was all smooth sailing, but it was certainly so very different from everything that came before.

(There’s maybe a point to be made about how they didn’t have anyone or anything in the finale and how that relates to the story we got, but honestly I have no idea what the intention was with any of the choices made in that episode so I’ll leave it at that for now.)

#asks #winchester brothers #my spn thoughts #long post for ts #Anonymous #spn meta

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dav3katz · 2 years

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Yandere!Kanaya x reader (I don't found many stuff for this), please! I Love Your Blog 😘!

Absolutely love Kanaya, so happy to finally get a rq for the lovely lady.

Yandere Kanaya hcs

- Kanaya is protective to a very extreme level, she doesn’t trust most people to be your friend so she goes out of her way to get rid of them. Typically by blocking them on your phone, telling them herself that you don’t wanna talk to them anymore. If that doesn’t work, she will simply kill them.

- but she does a wonderful job at hiding her true intentions for the most part! She comes across as a protective but lovely girlfriend who’s just so very sweet. It really helps that she handles rejection seemingly well, to you, she seems perfectly normal. To those around her too!

- she seems to have feelings for you a reasonable, healthy amount. But deep down she’s obsessed, and is quite the stalker.

- but you trust her of course, so you tell her how scared you are about it! And she’ll just be so sweet and comforting. There’s no reason to suspect she’d have anything to do with it!

- Kanaya is somewhat self aware her attraction towards you in unhealthy, thankfully there’s nobody there to stop her

- when you’re kidnapped you don’t even know it either, you just think she’s protecting you from some sort of danger outside, and she just loves how easy you are to convince. Such a naive, sweet, soul that needs protecting

- she babies you a lot! Even if you don’t want it, she tells you to stop it! You’re too adorable when you’re acting all tough, she doesn’t need you getting hurt though!

- but you just think she’s just being good ol kanaya, protective and sweet and even motherly at times

- she only trusts certain people to be your friends, such as karkat and sollux. She believes they are suitable, but dangerous people like vriska are a big no and she will do anything to get you to not talk to those people anymore.

- she will try to keep herself together, not be so physically affectionate no matter how much she wants to. The blush on her face as she stares at you with that sweet smile of hers makes it clear though

- coddles you, even when you don’t want it. You know she’s just being her caring self, but you feel this is a bit much! Especially when you tell her to stop! But she tells you she know you need this, just let her help you!

- when you reject her advances (such as hugging and cuddling) she thinks you’re being shy, truth is she knows fully well it isn’t what you want which annoys her, she wants you to just like her already!

- the thing is, you think she handled the rejection well, because she’s able to convince you that she’s the same and she’s fine. But she’s not handling it well at all and there’s this deep anger within her, she just wants you to love her.

- she buys you thinks, makes you clothes, does your nails and makeup if you desire it, anything! And she takes better care of you than anyone else ever could and you’re still so ungrateful

- it drives her mad with anger, but she is willing to hold herself together. The things she does for love, despite how much you don’t deserve her mercy

- in fact she thinks she should just love you, uncontrolled, unhinged, just let you get a taste of it all mercilessly

- but she doesn’t, she remains calm and collected. But she’s slowly losing it and one day she may actually snap

- but for now, she isolates you from most people in your life, and has you kept in this hive with her, fearing for your life cause you believe you’re in danger . That she’s the main person you can trust. And she revels in that, she loves providing you that protection, she feels pride in knowing she can protect you. Even if she knows it’s herself she’s protecting you from.

- but if you were to ever find out she murdered some friends you thought ghosted you, there won’t be anyway of escape and you may be truly and utterly fucked.

- and then, she sees no reason so shelter you from her overbearing affections anymore

#kanaya Maryam x reader #Kanaya x reader #hs x reader #homestuck x reader #homestuck kanaya x reader #hs kanaya x reader #yanderestuck x reader #yandere

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animeyanderelover · 3 years

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Whoo, requests are open! Can I get Azusa Mukami, Ash Launders, Lau, and Grell Sutcliff with a darling who's a ghost, or something akin to one? Thank you, please take your time with this and remember to take breaks when you need to!

I recently talked about this with my friend, but both of us are amazed with how popular Ash actually is. He suddenly became so beloved in here. Not that I complain😏.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, delusions, paranoia, self-harming behavior, kidnapping, killing

Ghost s/o

Grell Sutcliff

🟥Grell is a grim reaper and for that probably met ghosts quite a few times ago. Ghosts are souls from people who didn’t find peace yet and whilst humans can’t see ghosts most of the time, other supernatural creatures can. Grell feels sometimes a bit sorry for ghosts whose souls are tight to this world until whatever doesn’t allow them to Rest In Peace is solved. There are exceptions though, it isn’t unheard that even after the issue was solved, ghosts decided to stay, mainly because they started enjoying life as an undead once again. So at one point such examples were counted in the supernatural community as well.

🟥If her darling should be a pure ghost, it depends on whether they still try to find a way out of this world or are one of those who decided to live forever as a ghost. If it’s the first one, she would definitely try to make her darling enjoy life once again since she doesn’t want them to leave. She wants to give them happiness once again and would try about everything to make them feel joy again. If it’s the latter case, she would switch from a worried mother mode in a totally fascinated one. She did meet ghosts before, but normally they are more of loners since they grief over whatever they couldn’t finish during life. So having a darling as ghost makes her more interested since ghosts aren’t that known to other magical beings.

🟥Hopefully you know how to manifest yourself or else Grell will get really pouty since she’s clingy. A ghost can learn to materialize their body so others can touch them even though that takes practice. Girl loves you just very much to the extent where she often wants to jump on you and tackle you in a hug after a boring day of work...which ends with her being met with the ground of you don’t know how to control it or did it on purpose. It also tends to scare her a bit if you suddenly pop somewhere up without her knowing since you can just walk through objects. There was this one time where you were looking for her, ending with your head popping up through the ground right in front of her. And Grell might be able to handle, blood, zombies and other gore stuff, but not this. It ended with her screaming startled.

🟥If you’re not dead, but just possess the possibilities of a ghost, the whole walking through walls and turning invisible stuff, you’re most likely a hybrid because believe it or not, in materialized form ghosts can create or bear children too. And half breeds have been since the earliest days always been a more risky topic. Many creatures are still lacking the openness to accept persons from two different kinds since many are still in the classic belief that only the same species should have children together. It leads her to being more overprotective over you since she doesn’t want you to endure hatred and racism from others. She’s fiercely overprotective in that regard.

Lau

🚢He has a weird fascination with such things, at least in my opinion. He might only be human, but he has awareness of the more otherworldly creatures on this planet and his assistant, Ran Mao, herself appears to be some sort of superhuman as well. He has probably heard a lot of ghost stories before, either from his own country or here, in England. And he is somewhat good in telling when a story was just made up so the person could suddenly gain attention or if there is a spark of truth in it. He has a nose for stuff like this and actually likes listening to such stories.

🚢So expect his obsession to very quickly grow if his darling should be a ghost even though he would hold himself back if they are unhappy due to their unfinished business. He is manipulative and is also, despite being good in hiding it from his darling, very greedy and mercenary. He might not show it, but he has every intention to make his darling stay with him, even if that means ensuring that whatever they need to do in this world will never be finished. If you are that kind of ghost who’s happy with their new life, he would be much more open with his curiosity, expressing his interest in your abilities and also backstory. Especially if you should be a lot more older than your appearance gives away, he would be keen on your story. If it should happen that you were murdered and the killer is still alive, that guy will join your kind maybe very soon if they have regrets in their life.

🚢He’s also interested in how your anatomy works since he’s an expert in it. He of course wouldn’t use you like some test subject, but he is just kind of interested how you are able to turn your whole body in one moment in something thinner than air and in the next moment into something that appears to be flesh and blood again. He also kind of likes it to touch through you since your transparent body has a certain coldness around it which gives him goosebumps. It’s a great contrast to when you have materialized and are in possession of a warm body which leads him to being even more touchy than usual. Lau finds it also always very amusing whenever you suddenly appear out of thin air, your abilities are such a breath of fresh air for him. He tends to be a bit surprised, but is good in hiding it with his usual mysterious smile.

🚢He can only guess that a half-ghost like you are one isn’t very beloved in this world. Lau of course doesn’t think you, he finds it highly interesting that you are a mix from two different species, he never thought ghosts could actually create babies. If there’s the possibility, he would like to meet your parents and talk with them, especially the parent who’s the ghost. It kind of leads him to wanting to isolate you a bit since he doesn’t want some other creature trying to kill you since different from a normal ghost you can get hurt by weapons and die like a normal human even though it’s harder to do.

Ash Landers

▫️Whilst he definitely is informed about all the other magical beings existing in this world, he stays away from pretty much everyone, even his own kind. Ash is just embossed from his obsession with purity and doesn’t think of anyone as really worth living since everyone is tainted by greed, lust, sloth and other unspeakable sins. He even hates his own kind since many angels protect the exact lowlife he wants to get rid off, believing that every life deserves living and given a chance. He is somewhat alone with his crazy goals, but he doesn’t mind.

▫️I think Ash with a ghost darling isn’t a very good mix, a horrible if I’m being honest. For the simple reason that you already died and merely your soul remains on this planet, either because of your own free will or because you carry a burden with you. You’re dead. That should say everything to why Ash is experiencing the true deepness of madness and terror someone could never possibly begin to imagine. He failed, he pathetically and utterly failed to protect the only person who actually deserved a happy and good life. It makes his whole life shatter, next to his already screwed up sanity. It does not matter if you were killed, died in an accident or because of a deadly sickness. The village you lived in will be blamed and slaughtered by him.

▫️He’s horrible to act with this because I have this terrible thought that he will not only not allow you to leave, but also desperately try to search for ways to somehow get your soul back into your body or will find a vessel in which you can live. He does not care if you want it or not, he doesn’t even really care if you’re happy or not. Dead is dead and he wants you alive. He would get incredibly prone and torn apart if you yell and cry at him that you don’t want it, that you want to die finally in peace or like being a ghost. You just don’t understand!! HE HAS TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE ALIVE AGAIN!!!

▫️With you being only something akin to a ghost, a hybrid in here, the situation would still be very tangled, but a bit less than with you being an actual ghost. I see Ash as someone who usually despises hybrids, but you are made the only exception from this. It isn’t worth saying that he isolates you since he would do this in all scenarios, even though he also does it in here due to fearing that someone might talk down to you because of your unidentified species. He kind of thinks he’s the only one who can truly cherish you for your whole beauty. You might have an advantage since you can just sneak past him whilst invisible, question is if you’re heartless enough to let innocents suffer under this because Ash can and will burn whole cities down if it leads him to getting you back.

Azusa Mukami

🔪I don’t think he ever met ghosts or other otherworldly creatures before even though he lived a pretty long life. It stands even open to question if he is aware of the existence such other creatures. Whilst he does know that vampires exist, he himself is a half-blooded one, he is not really too informed about other creatures and might even not really cared about it anyways before meeting his s/o. His brothers on the other hand considered the fact of other magical beings on this planet.

🔪He is saddened that you are already dead, it doesn’t matter since how long you’ve already been. It’s still very upsetting for him, especially if you should be mourning over something you couldn’t do in your life as well. I do see him as someone who might actually possess the selflessness to let you go if you’re really desperate despite knowing he’ll die without you. So it’s up to his brothers to find ways to bind you to this earth because they’re scared what Azusa will do if you should ever disappear and leave him alone for eternity. With a darling who likes their current body and is satisfied with themselves, Azusa will be happy as well and be in love with you and your fascinating powers.

🔪But please let him touch you. He is clingy and likes having physical contact with you and if you aren’t able to manifest yourself and hurt him, he will become overtime more desperate. His brother also realize the problem with you being able to escape anytime you want from them except if you make this place your new place to haunt for eternity which all of them hope. Whilst he does like feeling your actual warmth and body, he still finds your ghostly form appearing, the feeling of cold and lingering touches everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time. I do not know if ghosts possess blood or anything like this, I doubt it. So that means at least you don’t have to worry about him eventually giving in to temptation.

🔪He will never be able to understand if someone should dislike his s/o if they should be somewhat of a half breed. As I mentioned, I don’t think he really cared much about the possibility of other beings existing and certainly not a mix made from more than one species. It does add up to his worshipper tendencies since apparently people like you are not very common. He thinks you’re wonderful. As a half-ghost you might have blood inside of you, if it’s from a human is another thing to discuss. But Azusa is from all vampires the one who wouldn’t want to suck your blood, even if it drives him crazy. And even if his brothers try to force him, you can abandon your materialized form anytime for your ghost body. You give Azusa’s brothers honestly a bit of a hard time with your abilities, it’s mocking for them in a way.

#yandere black butler #yandere kuroshitsuji #yandere grell #yandere grell sutcliff #yandere lau #yandere ash #yandere ash landers #yandere diabolik lovers #yandere azusa #yandere azusa mukami

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peppermintbee · 3 years

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OMORI’s poor writing (Part 2)

Once again, if you are a big fan of OMORI, this review is not for you. Treasure this game, love it, recommend it, make fan art, buy the merch, do what you will with it. I am not here to take OMORI away from anyone. Based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam, I know that my opinion is in the minority.

However, just as the fans have the right to praise the game, I have the right to examine it, criticize it, and explain why it failed to provide a compelling experience. This is second part of my review where I will tackle OMORI’s problematic themes and disrespectful appropriation of mental health.

[ See Part 1: Plot Writing Lies ]

(Note: I use “OMORI” in all-caps for the game title, and “Omori” in title case for the character name.)

Spoilers and criticism below.

Part 2: OMORI’s message is mishandled and distasteful

OMORI provides a warning that it depicts scenes of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Because the game includes these scenes, I assumed these mental health issues are presented in a way that is meaningful and respectful.

However, that is not the case.

Despite having depictions of such, this game is not really about depression, anxiety, or even suicide. It’s about committing a horrible crime, lying about it, and getting over the guilt.

1. Suicide as a game mechanic

Suicidal thoughts are intrusive, terrifying, and painful. As well as ending the victim's life, suicide wreaks havoc on the lives of those who once knew them. It is often a taboo topic, but discussing such matters is an important step to understanding and preventing it. Video games are a medium well suited to approaching such dark topics.

Unfortunately, OMORI does not handle the topic of suicide well at all.

First, suicide is written as a unavoidable game mechanic that seems to have been included for shallow reasons such as aesthetic and shock value. To leave Sunny’s headspace and wake up, you--as a player--must direct him to stab himself in the stomach.

But why? It’s not like waking up involves some sort of major sacrifice. In fact, waking up is something that is more or less unavoidable. Reality should be something that snatches Sunny away from his headspace against his will, perhaps as an encroaching darkness that Sunny can run from, but never truly escape. But instead, facing reality is something you are forced to opt into in the most needlessly violent way possible.

Forcing you--as a player--to literally commit suicide just to wake up from a dream is a pointless, distasteful, and disrespectful action that sets a precedent for suicide not being taken seriously in this game. (And it isn’t.)

In the black space, Omori is pressured to kill a cat. In that scene, regardless of your choice, you are forced to kill yourself. However, the act of stabbing yourself has been seen so many times at that point that it has completely lost any impact. Who cares about suicide when it’s been reduced to just a means of travel?

Lastly, if you fail to defeat the final boss, Sunny commits suicide in the real world. However, this is not a cutscene, it is once again something that you--as a player--are forced to do to progress. Putting these actions in the hands of a player is not as meaningful as the writer seems to believe, because there are no other options to progress. Any weight in making that decision is lost to resignation; a frustrated sigh of “Well, okay, fine. I guess I have to click Z here.” You are then rewarded with a SLAPPING pop song and a psychedelic cutscene of Sunny falling to his death. It’s tasteless to its core and appropriates the deaths of every suicidal person as a quirky, shallow “bad end.”

(Seriously, this is how the writer decided to depict a child taking his own life.)

youtube

2. Sunny/Omori is a poor presentation of depression

Sunny/Omori does not smile. Even in past photographs before The Incident, he still is not smiling. The contrast between Sunny and his friends stands out like a sore thumb, so I assumed this was the writer’s attempt to show that Sunny is dealing with depression, where he can’t be happy even in happy situations.

Of course, if that were the case it would be inaccurate since depressed people do smile and do hide their true feelings. They are often dismissed with, “You can’t be depressed, I saw you smiling once.” However, I was willing to let Sunny’s chronic frown slide because sometimes you have to oversimplify an idea to get your point across.

Much to my surprise, there is NO evidence of Sunny having depression before The Incident and there is very little indication of him having depression throughout the game either. The evidence of this is that while looking at a family portrait, Sunny comments that he's never liked to smile. Since he's a a baby in this portrait, this goes to show that his not smiling is simply a preference -- a quirky character trait that makes him stand out so that you feel an emotion during the true ending when he finally smiles.

Everything in the game seems to point to him being pretty happy and well adjusted up until he killed Mari. Then, even after he killed Mari, he pretty much looks and behaves the same way. Wouldn’t it be more jarring and tragic if you saw Sunny was happy in the past, but depressed now?

Which leads me to my next point...

3. Sunny and Basil are not depressed, they’re guilty (and for good reason)

In the book I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), Brené Brown explains the difference between feeling guilt and shame.

Guilt means: “I did something bad.” Shame means: “I am something bad.”

Guilt, when attributed to bad behavior, is actually a healthy emotion. It means that you have a sense of right and wrong, that you empathize with those you’ve hurt, and it motivates you to make things right.

Shame is an unhealthy emotion. It arrests growth, destroys self-esteem, causes poor decision making, isolates you from your loved ones, and is directly correlated with anxiety and depression.

OMORI should be a game about overcoming shame. All the right set pieces are there. Sunny’s walled himself off, his sister (allegedly) committed suicide, and he seems to be struggling with lifelong depression. However, this all falls apart, when it’s revealed that he killed his sister and staged her death as a suicide to escape blame (with Basil’s help). He DID do something bad. It’s not shame, it’s literally guilt.

All at once, OMORI stops being a game about recovering from grief and depression and becomes a game that demands the player to sympathize with a killer and liar who is hiding from his crimes. Because he and Basil feel bad about what they did, Sunny and Basil are presented as greater victims than their actual victim.

4. OMORI asks you empathize with villains (with ZERO self awareness)

Games where you are playing a character with a guilty conscience has been told before, but where OMORI really fails is that Sunny is not truly held accountable for what he did to others. Instead, the game focuses on HIS pain: since killing his sister he’s been isolated, he’s having nightmares, and he’s suicidal.

The plot of the game is focused on helping Sunny forgive himself for ruining other people’s lives. The writing barely acknowledges how his friends/family feel about what he did. When his victims’ pain IS addressed, it’s either used to further victimize Sunny (ie: isn’t it sad for him that he made his friends so sad?) or it’s used to reassure the player that Sunny’s victims have forgiven him (or will forgive him).

In fact, the game holds Mari responsible for her own death, citing that her "perfectionism" must have been what pushed Sunny to attack her. OMORI presents Mari, through headspace, as someone who accepted death gracefully and wants Sunny to live a happy life. She is never given her own voice and nothing in the game suggests she is capable of feeling bitter over her death and postmortem desecration. She plays the role of the Madonna archetype--and the perfect victim--allowing the player to empathize entirely with Sunny while accepting that Mari brought everything on herself.

[Mari suggesting that Sunny acting out his aggression on her was her fault.]

The climax of this game is NOT Sunny telling the truth to his friends. The climax is Sunny defeating his guilt and forgiving himself. We know this because the story does not even show how his friends respond to his confession, because-- once again-- what’s most important thing is resolving Sunny’s pain, not the pain he has caused others. (Though the game does heavily imply that his friends will forgive him.)

[Pictured: the boys shedding their guilt is the true happy ending ]

Imagine, for a moment, if this game was about an abuser, who caused immense pain to someone and got away with it. Then, the whole game was about how they felt bad for the abuse they caused, and-- as a player-- you help them forgive THEMSELF for their past abuse. Then, in the last few seconds of the game, they either apologize to their victim or kill themself. The victim’s response is not shown because it is not important.

This is the plot of OMORI, except with a bunch of excuses thrown on top to make it more palatable. Sunny and Basil are just soooo cute and sad. Killing Mari was an accident. Stringing her body up like a piñata was a juvenile mistake. The boys feel SO BAD that they want to kill themselves. And because suicide is so tragic, you-- as an audience-- are manipulated into empathizing them.

5. In OMORI, suicide is used as a cheap ploy for sympathy

As I mentioned before, suicide is horrible and tragic. People struggling with suicidal ideation need help, support, and respect. That said, let’s make one thing clear: being suicidal does not automatically make someone a good person. There are plenty of examples of criminals who kill themselves to escape the penalty or guilt for something they did. It is so common in the news that I don’t think I have to list out examples.

In bad endings, Sunny and Basil’s suicides are 100% motivated by guilt for their very real crimes. Now, it should be stated, Sunny and Basil do not deserve to die. And because suicide is such an extreme, permanent end for those two boys, we-- as players-- are invested in preventing that tragic end at all costs.

However, the looming threat of suicide is used as leverage to force the audience to dismiss the severity of what Sunny and Basil did. As I’ve said before, the plot of the game is about soothing and alleviating Sunny’s guilt and stopping him from killing himself as opposed to making things right.

The worst thing is, this tactic actually works. The threat of suicide is so strong, it has distracted many players from the truth that this story is about sympathizing with a boy who has killed his sister, with little regard for those his actions have affected (see point #4).

It’s terrible because suicide is such a serious topic worthy of discussion, but when used as little more than pity-bait, it twists your perception of what the characters did and silences those who try to criticize how this game handles such topics.

6. Mari's suicide being fake is a terrible twist

Lastly, by revealing Mari’s “suicide” as an accidental death, OMORI misses an opportunity to tell a much more powerful story. In the first half of this game, when Mari is thought to have committed suicide at the young age of 15, is a sobering moment. That tragedy is something very real.

If Mari had killed herself as opposed to being killed, Sunny isolating himself after his sister takes her own life is realistic. Mari’s death coming as a surprise is also realistic; how often have we heard people saying that they never knew someone was suffering? That they seemed like such a happy person?

Losing a loved one to suicide does not just cause horrible grief, but crippling shame as well. Those left behind will blame themselves, tormented by thoughts of how they could have saved them, how they would do anything to get them back. That shame can follow you forever, haunting you like a ghost, threatening you with the same fate. Overcoming that grief and shame is no simple task, and I truly thought OMORI was going to be about grappling with grief and letting go of survivor guilt.

Instead, Mari didn’t commit suicide, her life was cut short by her brother. Then, her body was staged as a suicide, forever changing how her family and friends perceived her. Her hanging body did not represent a devastating loss of life and horror of teen depression, but instead is a cheap twist that represents Sunny’s guilt for killing her and tampering with her corpse.

Conclusion:

As I’ve mentioned before OMORI has a lot of potential. The set pieces of a depressed kid who escapes to a dream world to cope with his unresolved trauma is one that had the makings to be very meaningful. However, it fumbles these issues, creating a sloppy plot that results in a problematic message. It’s baffling that this even happened, especially considering the length of time this was in development.

#omori #omori hate #review #words #the more I analyze it the worse this game gets #suicide cw #omori spoilers

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mbti-notes · 3 years

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Anon wrote: When I rummage through all I could on this blog, I eventually didn’t have a hard time typing myself and those around me. It has been especially helpful in order to understand others better, because I now realise I have been self absorbed and only considered my own feelings.

However, there’s one person close to me I just cannot type for the life of me. This is my father. I was wondering if you could give me insight, but then again you don’t know this person, so anything I give you might only give a superficial image. I’ll try anyway because if I could narrow down the possibilities, maybe I’d be able to assess his type better. I really want to understand him.

He cares a lot about being a provider and is upset when you dismiss all that he has done despite not telling you the things he did because he wants to protect you. He is sensitive to criticism. He takes it very personally and it hurts him. I view him as introverted, a bit scatter-minded. He used to love writing poetry in his youth, but is now stifled by the fact that he works morning till evening and has no free time. He is too tired, he says.

When we watch movies, he does not care about the abstract themes and messages and tends to fixate on a specific detail. For example back to the future is about a boy learning his parents were just like him once, with similar struggles and dreams, but my father only cares about the science of time travel in the movie (even though it’s cartoonish time travel science) to the point that he has watched the movie many many times but wouldn’t be able to tell you what kind of person the main character is. (And when I point this out he gets upset because he takes it as a personal attack, me criticising his intelligence or something). I am quite the dreamer and I realise I sometimes excessively use escapism to an unhealthy degree, I’ll isolate and be in my own head a lot which is something I’m working on.

My father seems to be a realist, although an emotional one. He is always going on about how I must face reality (true). He agrees with my idealistic values and sympathises with my emotions, but ultimately prioritises “real life”. If I point this out he won’t admit it (the personal attack thing again), but I also feel like he cares about status and appearances to a degree. Not as much as my mother, but still it is clear that he wants to project a good image of himself to others. Often I think he starts to “lecture” about things just so the other person will think him insightful and smart. He IS insightful and smart, but would rather be validated for this than have an actual discussion. If I join these “lectures” with an opposing view, he retreats quickly and backs down because he doesn’t want to appear like the less knowledgeable one (or at least that’s why I think he does it. Again he also takes this personally even though it isn’t an attack on him but merely me trying to look at other perspectives or understand what he’s saying better).

I don’t know if any of this gives you insight into anything that could help me in the right direction with typing him, but I’d appreciate it if you could give me some ideas! Thank you!

-----------------------

Actually, it's quite common for people to have difficulty typing their parents. Oftentimes, kids don't see who their parents really are; they only see the small part of them that occupies the role of "mom" or "dad". It seems that you've tried to dig deeper into his way of thinking, which is good.

Being extremely sensitive to criticism and easily shamed by it, hoping for validation and appreciation for his efforts, being protective in a paternalistic manner, building identity upon sacrificing for others are all significant clues that point to Fe. You seem confident that he's Introverted and Feeler (the details support it), so this already logically narrows the field down to either ISFJ or INFJ. If you're not 100% sure of Introverted, then you must also consider ESFJ and ENFJ.

You claim that he's a realist and has little energy/tendency/patience for living in the world of abstract possibilities (unlike you), which strongly suggests Sensor. One point that really sticks out is "being too tired". It is really common for ISFJs who aren't living their best life to frequently complain of being tired. It's a way to avoid confronting the true extent of their unhappiness and/or the many ways in which they fail to be true to themselves. If they confronted their true feelings, they'd have to change their life, and they aren't good at dealing with change. It's easier just to say that they don't have the energy for this or that. It becomes a physical limitation (reasonable but not changeable), not a psychological problem (shameful and must be changed).

Your movie watching example was a good one, especially in terms of how he nitpicks very particular details while not caring about the bigger picture. He does not have any natural tendency to extract themes or create abstract connections, which really helps to rule out INFJ (Ni). His sorest spots match up with Ti and Ne development problems. He knows that he's not particularly "high-minded", but secretly admires (and simultaneously resents?) those who are, so he doesn't like being publicly exposed as not (i.e. shamed as inadequate in that dept).

The evidence seems to point toward ISFJ. I think all the pieces are there. The question now: Is there another functional stack that might fit better?

#typing #isfj #ask

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k-s-morgan · 4 years

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Will’s vs. Hannibal’s Ways of Expressing Love

The fact that Hannibal loves Will and is in love with him is openly stated in the show several times. Will’s feelings, on the other hand, are more ambiguous, which is why some viewers often doubt whether Hannibal’s love is reciprocated. I think that exploring the ways these two men experience and react to love can explain the varying degrees of their openness about it.

I’ll put TLDR right here: Hannibal is more open about himself and his feelings, including love, hence he doesn’t have many challenges with admitting it. Will is closed off, stiff, and emotionally repressed, so he expresses his feelings in a much more subtle way.

Let’s start with Hannibal. Details about his past are scarce, but we know that he admits to loving two people throughout his life, his sister and Will.

E3 of S3.

*Bedelia: What your sister made you feel was beyond your conscious ability to control or predict … I would suggest what Will Graham makes you feel is not dissimilar. A force of mind and circumstance.*

*Hannibal: Love.*

Undoubtedly, Hannibal’s love for Mischa was traumatic and unhealthy. He loved her so much that he ate a part of her body after she was killed, devastated by this loss. But it was still love that made him feel all the related emotions, so Hannibal has some experience with it. From what we know of him, he has a very broad mind. He despises limitations and overcomes them, and he is not ashamed of who he is. He isn’t embarrassed to cry in the opera or to be the first to stand up and applaud; he delights in stereotypically ‘feminine’ hobbies like cooking and clothes selection; he draws fan-art and openly expresses his admiration when it’s due. For this reason, Hannibal doesn’t have many problems with expressing love either.

Upon meeting Will, he is immediately drawn to him. He sees him as his potential partner and decides he wants to try and build a family with him as early as E2 of S1. That’s when he starts planting the idea of Abigail being their shared daughter in Will’s mind. He does the same to Abigail, urging her to see him and Will as her parents, even giving her shrooms to evoke the desired associations (unsuccessfully since Will doesn’t come to dinner). So, Hannibal acknowledged his pull/infatuation with Will from the very start, and he acted on it right away.

It’s not 100% love at this point, but Hannibal still easily follows his emotions. He doesn’t stop to consider how strange it is to want a family with a man he just met; he doesn’t agonize over the idea of how his life has more risks now that he allows another human being to know him. When these feelings progress at the end of S1/start of S2, Hannibal is finally taken aback. While he never planned to leave Will in prison and it was a part of his plan, he still didn’t expect to miss him so much — he admits it to Bedelia, looking forlorn, in E1 of S2. He repeatedly pines for Will by sitting in front of his chair at the time of his supposed appointment, glancing at the clock despite knowing Will is not going to come. This is a shift to an actual love, but Hannibal still doesn’t fight it. On the contrary, he embraces it, and he spends the entire S2 doing repeatedly romantic gestures for Will. Namely:

1) Protects Abigail to reunite Will with her later.

2) Shares a part of himself he doesn’t seem to have ever shared with anyone else. He talks to Will about Mischa, reveals his views on murder and God, acknowledges he cared about Abigail, and shows vulnerability. He shares his teacup ritual with him, which is something precious and deeply personal.

3) He digs up fake Freddie’s corpse and decorates it as a way of courting Will (as directly said by Alana).

4) He draws a fan-art of himself and Will as Achilles and Patroclus.

5) He is ready to abandon his well-established life in Baltimore and reputation to run away with Will. In Hannibal’s view, no one truly suspects him and there is no evidence against him, but Will is in danger. So he’s willing to discard everything he’s been building for 20 years for him.

Finally, he calls Will a loved one more or less directly in E13 of S2 (in fact, he implies that they both love each other).

*Hannibal: Do you know what an imago is, Will? … An imago is an image of a loved one buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives.*

*Will: An ideal.*

*Hannibal: The concept of an ideal... I have a concept of you, just as you have a concept of me.*

Will hurts him with his betrayal, and Hannibal still finds himself unable to kill him. He is openly crying in the finale, admitting how Will hurt him, breaks his (and his own) heart by killing Abigail, and flees to Europe to start a new life. But things don’t go as he hoped they would. Bedelia is not a worthy substitute, and Hannibal is increasingly slipping into a self-destructive state because of his love for Will. He kills Anthony, who was an improved copy of Will, and turns him into a Valentine heart for him. Again, this is a very explicit and open emotional action. Hannibal doesn’t hide his feelings. He’s an emotional wreck with Bedelia in E3, and as they are talking about Will, he admits he’s in love with him.

*Hannibal: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.*

Bedelia points out his self-destructiveness.

*Bedelia: You're going to get caught. It's already been set into motion … I know exactly how I will be navigating my way out of whatever it is I’ve gotten myself into. Do you?*

After Hannibal keeps spiraling and kills Sogliato, she adds: *You're drawing them to you, aren't you? All of them.*

Hannibal gets so self-destructive over Will that he lets Jack beat himself almost to death, not even attempting to fight him. The first words he says to Will after they reunite in E6 are:

*Hannibal: If I saw you every day forever, Will, I would remember this time.*

He’s a romantic. The courtship, the Valentine heart, the romance — Hannibal did have some struggles, but overall, he accepts these feelings and isn’t afraid to act on them.

When Will pulls a knife in E6, Hannibal classifies it as another betrayal. This is where he decides to kill and eat him in the hope to put an end to this misery (which is what he and Bedelia discussed back in E3). However, even blinded by another heartbreak, Hannibal tries to save Will at the same time. He knows the police are coming and he puts off the moment of sawing for as long as he can, first fussing over Will and his wound, then waiting for Jack, then doing everything slowly as hell.

Everything changes in E7, when Hannibal faces the real risk of losing Will and comes to terms with the fact that a hope of life with him is better than life without him. So Hannibal carries Will home bridal-style, takes care of him, waits for him to wake up and writes formulas to reverse time. He directly tells Will that Will won, and that he, Hannibal, is at Will’s mercy.

*Hannibal: Your memory palace is building. It's full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own. I've discovered you there. Victorious.*

He gives himself up, sacrificing the freedom he’s been fighting for back in E2 finale, in the hope that one day, Will is going to come back to him. After this, Hannibal is all about Will, with all his heart. Throughout the second half of S3, he says things like, *“I gave you a child. You are family, Will. Was it good to see me?”*, etc. He agrees to risk his life by agreeing to Will’s plan, knowing he’s planning something but not knowing what and if he’d die in the process. In E13, Hannibal says:

*Hannibal: "No greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend"* and shields Will from the bullet. Later, he allows Will to push them both down, and he stays with him afterward.

Conclusion: Hannibal is very accepting of himself, so he doesn’t undergo severe challenges on the path to acknowledging what he feels for Will. He knows what love feels like because he felt it for Mischa before, so he embraces loving Will pretty quickly, even though he doesn’t know how to best approach it at times. That’s why we get direct and explicit confirmation of his feelings several times.

Now, on to Will.

Unlike with Hannibal, there is no evidence that Will has ever experienced love before (at least love for people). We know he had a father and was lonely as a child.

E4 of S1.

*Will: We were poor. I followed my father from the boat yards in Biloxi and Greenville to lake boats on Erie.*

*Hannibal: Always the new boy at school? Always the stranger?*

*Will: Always.*

His choice of words indicates that his relationship with his father wasn’t all that good (for instance, *I followed my father* instead of *My father and I had to…*). So, it doesn’t look like Will ever had meaningful connections. More than that, he says:

*Will: There’s something so foreign about family. Like an ill-fitting suit. Never connected to the concept.*

We can suggest that he doesn’t know what love is or how it feels like. From E1, we know he isolates himself because he hates himself for who he is: he understands he’s different, that there is darkness in him, but he desperately tries to subdue it and deny this fact. He’s rude, twitchy, and unhappy, but like Hannibal, he understands the extent of his loneliness only upon meeting him. That’s when he tries forming relationships with others.

Will’s relationships with Alana and Abigail are a good indication of his problems with love. He wants to be with Alana because he needs to feel normal. In 99% of cases, he remembers about her only when she comes to seek him out first. He kisses her for the first time at the moment of particular vulnerability, fearing that he’s finally losing his mind (in E8). When Hannibal calls him out on it, Will doesn’t deny it and semi-nods. He actually had to agree with it verbally according to the script.

*Will: I feel unstable.*

*Hannibal: That’s why you kissed her. A clutch for balance.*

*Will: Because I’m losing mine.*

So, it’s not that Will feels romantic love for Alana — he uses her because he desperately needs to feel like everyone else. Alana is a pretty, smart, normal woman who fits this goal perfectly. He doesn’t allow himself to be genuine with her unlike he does with Hannibal, to whom he opens up.

Will confesses to Hannibal that he loved killing Hobbs in E2, which got him down and made him panic. Hannibal supports him, and Will keeps coming back to him. He talks about everything important with Hannibal, opening parts of himself that he guards from everyone else. Will asks Hannibal to look after his dogs as early as E4 — he doesn’t have other friends, and he’s already focused on Hannibal. He buys into an idea of having a family with him and Abigail, which is amazing for Will, who has just said he could never relate to the concept of family.

When Will buys a gift for Abigail in the same E4 and freaks out, Hannibal asks him:

*Hannibal: Feeling paternal, Will?*

Will’s reaction is instant and defensive:

*Will: Aren’t you?*

Hannibal easily says “yes”, which disarms Will. This is a great contrast between them: Hannibal isn’t afraid to talk and acknowledge his feelings while Will is embarrassed of them and shies away from them. In fact, this is a repeat of their conversation in E2.

*Hannibal: You saved Abigail Hobbs' life. You also orphaned her. It comes with certain emotional obligations.*

*Will: You were there. You saved her life, too. Do you feel obligated?*

Again, Will deflects. He’s wary of emotions, especially of admitting them out loud.

Will shows a hint of romantic interest in Hannibal in E7. He brings him a bottle of wine out of blue, but unfortunately, he stumbles upon the party Hannibal is preparing. Hannibal invites him to stay, but Will says he won’t be good company. He’s shy and awkward, smiling nervously and dropping his gaze in embarrassment. Then we have this lovely line:

*Will: I’ve got a date with the Chesapeake Ripper.*

So, in S1, Will makes considerable emotional progress. He realizes he wants a family after all, and while he makes several half-hearted attempts to court Alana, he’s mostly focused on Hannibal and Abigail. He opens himself up to Hannibal, receives official guardianship over Abigail with him, arguably flirts with Hannibal (like in the wine scene above), and covers up murder to protect their family. But then Hannibal betrays him. Will doesn’t know his reasons yet, but this betrayal plunged him into darkness, bitterness, and new stage of emotional repression. It’s worth mentioning another point of Abigail here: in the end, Will doesn’t know her. He spoke to her only several times, and even fewer times were genuine. He loves the idea of her, and this idea was introduced by Hannibal, not by Abigail’s presence. It’s Hannibal who forced Will to confront his need to love and be loved.

In S2, Will is incredibly conflicted. He acknowledges to Hannibal that he hurt him, tries to kill him via Matthew, but when he recognizes that Hannibal wants him as a friend (as spoken in E7), his attitude changes. Will doesn’t plan to forgive him, he’s still angry at Hannibal for killing Abigail (which is his biggest conflict, as evident from his talks with Hannibal himself and Freddie), but now, he can’t bring himself to harm or betray Hannibal.

He gets his first chance in E7, after being released from prison. He threatens Hannibal with a gun and has a perfect chance to make him pay, but he doesn’t. Instead, he conspires with Jack and decides to cultivate co-dependency, creating an environment where only he “and the fish exist” (E8). What does Will do to start? He makes himself physically attractive, grooming and dressing prettily. It’s a seduction on all levels, and Will plans to use emotions to hurt Hannibal back. At the same time, Will admits to being confused over what he feels for Hannibal.

E8 of S2.

*Will: I envy you your hate. Makes it much easier when you know how to feel.*

E9 of S2 (talking about trying to kill Hannibal with Margot).

*Margot: Did he have it coming?*

*Will: What do you think?*

*Margot: I can't say that I know.*

*Will: Neither can I.*

He spends the rest of the season lying to both Hannibal and Jack, unsure whose side to choose, too lost in his own feelings to make sense of them. At the same time, he has a dream where Hannibal calls him beloved in E9. It shows that Will contemplates the idea of love in relation to Hannibal. In E10, Will tries to fantasize about Alana as he’s having sex with Margot. However, he sees the image of Wendigo near the fireplace, Wendigo who he’s used to associating with Hannibal. Two interesting things (copied from my other meta): first, Will actually sees Hannibal’s room and consequently, he sees himself in it (or he sees their rooms united). Second, he sees the Wendigo near Hannibal’s fireplace. Fireplace has many meanings, including passion, sexuality, home, family, and resurrection. It emphasizes the sexual and romantic subtext of this uniquely shot scene, where people destined to be together have sex with the wrong partners. Will’s vision begins to contract, focusing on Wendigo: he is having an orgasm at this very moment, imagining the Wendigo’s face very close, approaching him. Still through the misty eyes, he tries to focus on Alana again, but his gaze moves up to Wendigo above her, as if he can’t help himself. He and Hannibal reach orgasm first, with Alana and Margot following them. So, Will dragged Hannibal into his sex fantasy. It’s both symbolic and physical: he tried to imagine Alana just like he tried to have a relationship with her before, in S1, out of his desire to be normal. But his attention is inevitably drawn to Hannibal, who’s his “real deal”.

Based on this scene, it’s underlined once again how Will struggles with emotions. Even in the safety of his own mind, in his own fantasy, he tries to think of Alana but still ends up with Hannibal. Will is always fighting himself and who he is. He refuses to accept his darkness just as he refuses to admit he loves Hannibal. It’s the essence of who he is, denial is his second name.

Among the important moments, there are Will’s words to Hannibal:

*Will: You are right. We are just alike. You are as alone as I am. And we are both alone without each other.*

So, Will accepts the bond with Hannibal, and at this stage, he even has the courage to voice some of his emotional thoughts. His progress is slow, but it’s there.

In E11, Will has a nightmare. He sees a burning corpse of ‘Freddie’ in a wheelchair, a symbol of his betrayal of Hannibal, and he hears his own increasing screaming. It’s easy to interpret, knowing the context: Will feels guilty for lying to Hannibal.

When Margot loses her child, Will feels renewed anger at Hannibal. He fantasizes about killing him and gets to realize his fantasy with Mason’s help in E12. But at the last moment, Will changes his mind and chooses Hannibal. He does the same thing in E13 by calling him. When he sees him, he doesn’t even try to point a gun at him: he asks why he didn’t leave as he was supposed to, and he even leans forward to accept the knife, accept the punishment for betrayal.

So, Will chooses Hannibal over Abigail, for whom he wanted justice; over his and Margot’s child, for whom he wanted revenge; over Jack and Alana, who were his only semblance of friends; over his own confusion and desire to be normal. For someone as emotionally stunted as Will, it’s huge. It proves that he loves Hannibal and is willing to compromise all other relationships he has formed as well his own beliefs for him (while Will is dark, he tries to fight it because he doesn’t think people like them are normal). Is it romantic? Will’s dream with the word “beloved” and his sex fantasy, as well as his acceptance of the idea that he and Hannibal were Abigail’s fathers (which makes them partners) imply that yes, romantic feeling is a part of it.

Hannibal’s romantic feelings became explicit in S3, and so did Will’s. But since Hannibal is more open and self-accepting, his were discussed out loud while Will’s were mostly portrayed silently, implied, and alluded to.

Will builds a boat to sail and find Hannibal, which is pretty romantic by itself. He spends his time in Hannibal’s house, in the kitchen where their bloody break-up happened, imagining Abigail near him. When Alana comes to find him, he asks her to leave. He’s cold and indifferent toward her — she’s not what he wants, and he’s not interested in even friendship with her. All he wants is to mourn his lost family with Hannibal and Abigail. Again, Hannibal is Will’s priority.

Will imagines his perfect world as the one where he and Hannibal killed Jack together. This scene is intercut with his Mizumono memories, namely, with Hannibal's face that emerges every time he moves yet another part of the engine. This is a vivid demonstration of Will trying to repair what is now broken. When Jack asks him why he called him, Will is indifferent and genuine:

*Will: I wasn't decided when I called him. I just called him. I deliberated while the phone rang. I decided when I heard his voice … I told him to leave. I wanted him to run … Because he was my friend. And because I wanted to run away with him.*

That’s a big admission for Will. This is the first time he openly acknowledges Hannibal as his friend in front of another person. Chilton calls Will and Hannibal’s interactions a “flirtation” in this episode, which once again points us in the romantic direction.

The entire E2 of S3 is dedicated to Will’s love for Hannibal, where he argues about it with himself in the form of imaginary Abigail. This is another proof of Will’s problem with emotions in general and emotions for Hannibal in particular. He can’t just think to himself as normal people do — no, he can’t admit how much he loves Hannibal this. Instead, he imagines Abigail and talks to himself through her to make it easier. He berates himself for lying.

*Will/Abigail: We were all supposed to leave together. He made a place for us. Why did you lie to him? He gave you a chance to take it all back, and you just kept lying.*

Will is reverent about Hannibal; he keeps talking about him over and over again.

*Will: This isn't Hannibal, it's just where he begins. Beyond this, far and complex, light and dark, is the vast structure of his mind. A thousand rooms, miles of corridors. Everything he remembers, wonderfully and fearfully reconstructed.*

Will goes as far as lies at the place where Hannibal’s Valentine heart for him was, reconstructing this image and trying to feel close to him. The heart comes to life the moment Will touches it, which is romantic. Will says:

*Will: A valentine written on a broken man … I do feel closer to Hannibal here. God only knows where I would be without him … He left us his broken heart … He misses us.*

He looks on the verge of tears, so Hannibal’s gift touched him. Will is overcome by emotions. At this very moment, his more frightened side suggests that Hannibal is also playing with him.

*Will: Hannibal follows several trains of thought at once without distraction from any, and one of the trains is always for his own amusement.*

We know it’s not the case, especially here, but Will has trust issues and a low self-esteem. He’s worried that Hannibal’s feelings for him aren’t as strong as he thinks they are, which is why he’s not sure how to react himself. He asks himself, *“You still want to go with him?”* and replies, *“Yes.” He wonders about what life they’d have if they left.

*Will: What if no one died? What if we all left together? Like we were supposed to. After he served the lamb. Where would we have gone? … In some other world.*

Pazzi comes and tells Will that he hopes they’ll catch Hannibal together.

*Will: What makes you think I want to catch him?*

Later, Pazzi says:

*Pazzi: He let you know him. He sent you his heart.*

E2 ends with Will scaring Pazzi and telling him, *“You don’t know whose side I’m on.* Then he tells Hannibal he forgives him, which is also a huge step in his direction.

This entire episode proves that yes, Will loves Hannibal. Considering how he isn’t awkward from receiving a Valentine or hearing that Hannibal gave him his heart, Will shares the romantic aspect of Hannibal’s feelings for him. He regrets not running away with him and their daughter, he places himself on the floor where the heart was to feel closer to him — this is such a rich romantic subtext that it’s practically text. Especially for Will, who remains so conflicted and emotionally restrained all the time.

Will’s attitude changes after seeing Chiyoh. He becomes more bitter. Considering how dark he is in these scenes and how he constantly compares himself and Chiyoh, he likely sees her as someone Hannibal was supposed to love but easily abandoned. It makes Will draw the parallels between them, and he starts to doubt that Hannibal loves him, that his “broken heart” has any authentic meaning. That’s where he starts thinking about killing Hannibal again. He still says:

*Will: I’ve never known myself as well as I know myself when I’m with him.*

This line also speaks volumes. Hannibal gave Will a precious gift of understanding himself; he showed that he could accept him, and Will is drawn to it. Will admits the depth of their connection to yet another person. Then he makes a firefly from Chiyoh’s prisoner, a tribute that is clearly done with Hannibal in his mind, considering the style and the central topic.

Chiyoh sees right through Will’s emotional constipation. She implies that he should “kiss” Hannibal rather than keep being “violent”:

*Chiyoh: I told you, there are means of influence other than violence.*

She kisses Will then, thus showing him what others means exist. He doesn’t get it, though, since he responds to her kiss despite not feeling anything for her, and she pushes him off the train, likely admitting he’s a hopeless case.

Meeting Jack, Will tells him that a part of him will always want to leave with Hannibal. This is yet another declaration from him. Will isn’t scared of the consequences — he speaks of his feelings openly now. It’s a great development of his character.

But the feeling of doubt about Hannibal likely resurfaces further after Will sees that Hannibal replaced him and Abigail with Bedelia in E6 (hence his hatred for her since that moment). He mocks her alibi and then leaves to reunite with Hannibal. The following moment was deleted, but it still discloses some of Will’s romantic feelings:

*Will: I looked up at the night sky there. Orion above the horizon and, near it, Jupiter. I wondered if you could see it, too. I wondered if our stars were the same.*

From the words that did get into the episode:

*Will: You and I have begun to blur ... We're conjoined. Curious if either of us can survive separation.*

Will doesn’t just admit the bond between them, he elevates it the level of soulmates, implying they are one and the same. It’s also a declaration of love in his language. But love doesn’t stop Will from being vindictive, hurt, and angry, so after meetings with Chiyoh and Bedelia that affected his perception, he pulls out a knife as he and Hannibal are walking together.

There is a brain-sawing disaster after this and E7, where Will looks done and tired from the madness and his constant attempts to figure Hannibal out. He does bite Cordell before looking at Hannibal, seeking his approval; he uses “we” pronouns when speaking about Hannibal with Alana. One example:

*Will: You helped Mason Verger find us.*

So, he still sees himself and Hannibal as a team, but he’s still tired and bitter, so after everything is over, he hurts Hannibal by saying he doesn’t share his appetite and by attacking him emotionally.

*Will: I miss my dogs. I'm not going to miss you. I'm not going to find you. I'm not going to look for you. I don't want to know where you are or what you do. I don't want to think about you anymore.*

This is all personal and emotional. It sounds like a break-up, which is exactly how Bryan Fuller and others referred to it. When Hannibal leaves and Jacks arrives, Will puts on his glasses, an indication that he’s hiding again.

Fast-forward 3 years. Will is married now, but from the very start, we see that this marriage isn’t all people usually expect it to be. The first scene shows the family apart. Molly and Walter have gone fishing, which is something Will loves. He had dreams about teaching Abigail how to fish, but he doesn’t go to do that with his family, preferring to stay alone instead. It’s the first hint that his heart isn’t in this relationship, that he’s too hung up on the past to move forward and make new happy memories.

Jack came to drag him to Dragon’s case, and Will makes it look like he’s reluctant. At the same time, he doesn’t send Jack away, even though we know from the past that he has no qualms being frank when he wants to. More than that, he asks him not to show pics to Molly, but when they have dinner, Will deliberately leaves the house with Walter, leaving Jack and Molly together. At night, when Molly’s asleep, he crawls out of bed and goes to read Hannibal’s letter. He doesn’t tell the truth to Molly about himself and his dark urges, about everything he has done – Molly clearly has no idea who he truly is, considering how she jokes about his ‘criminal mind’ in later episodes and how Will immediately closes himself off from her. He never initiates physical touches with her; he doesn’t return her “I love you”, which is an even bigger indication of his lack of commitment. Will is emotionally stiff with Molly for the most part, and the only times he laughs with her or shows any emotion is when they are talking about superficial stuff in the former case and when he’s furious after Francis’ attack in the latter one. Other than that, there is no closeness or honesty.

Another point of Will’s inability to express or even give his love to someone is in his scene with Walter in E11. This child, his step-son, has just been attacked by a serial killer with his mother. His mother was hurt and they barely escaped. Will doesn’t hug him or offer him paternal emotional comfort; he’s very awkward. All he says is, “You're both safe here,” which is something an officer might say but not a father. Will was much more emotional in his fantasies about Abigail.

This is what Will says about Walter’s reaction to Jack:

*Will: He read about me in a Freddie Lounds article. I had to justify myself to an eleven year old.*

He’s resentful and not emotional. He doesn’t say, “I had to justify myself to my son!” – he distances himself from him. Will is cold. He has expressed his feelings for Hannibal at this point in rather poetic ways, but he can’t be bothered to do this for his wife and his son.

He treats Hannibal in a very reserved fashion too, in comparison to how he acted 3 years ago. However: first, there is the fact that he came to visit him in the first place. Will didn’t need his help, we saw very clearly how he managed to easily reconstruct the crime scene the night before. It proved that his mindset is in a good shape, so he didn’t need Hannibal’s assistance. But it’s Hannibal he requested to see right away.

Will distances himself from him by calling him “Doctor Lecter” and insisting that he’s more comfortable the less personal they are. His eyes glisten, though, and he can’t look away from Hannibal. The impersonal approach doesn’t last very long, too, and soon, they are talking like they always did. Hannibal accuses Will of marrying for false reasons.

*Hannibal: How did you choose yours? Readymade wife and child to serve your needs. A stepson or daughter. A stepson absolves you of any biological blame. You know better than to breed. Can't pass on those terrible traits you fear the most.*

Will doesn’t bother to deny it, though any man would have been offended, particularly if he truly loved his family. In Will’s case, from the experience and all the precedents, silence = agreement.

In E10, Will seeks Bedelia out. He acts catty and jealous, targeting her personal connection with Hannibal.

*Will: You didn't lose yourself, Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you couldn't be bothered.* - personal, targeted against Bedelia's attachment to Hannibal.

*Will: You hitched your star to a man commonly known as a monster. You're the Bride of Frankenstein.* - personal, attack with romantic connotation. Bedelia catches up on it and mocks him:

*Bedelia: We've both been his bride. Have you been to see him?*

*Will: Yes.*

*Bedelia: Haven't learned anything, have you? Or did you just miss him that much?*

*Will: Have you been to see him?* - personal again. Will wants to know if Bedelia is keeping contact with Hannibal.

*Bedelia: I've seen enough of him. I was with him behind the veil. You were always on the other side.*

*Will: Something we should talk about.* - again, personal. It's all personal, which is why Bryan and Hugh called them Hannibal's jealous bitchy exes. Will is palpably jealous and he shows his resentment to Bedelia openly.

Later, we have some more romantic references.

*Bedelia: My relationship with Hannibal is not as passionate as yours. You are here visiting old flame. Is your wife aware of how intimately you and Hannibal know each other? … Your experience of Hannibal’s attention is so profoundly harmful yet so irresistible, it undermines your ability to think rationally.*

So, there is romantic text, parallels between Hannibal and Will’s wife, and Will doesn’t deny any of this again. He keeps coming to Bedelia because she’s the only person he can talk about Hannibal to without being watched.

After Hannibal sends Francis after Molly and Walter, Will spends about a minute being angry with him. Then he accuses Hannibal of staging a competition between him and Francis. It is startling: Will spent months, years mourning the loss of Abigail who he didn’t even really know personally, yet he forgets the gravity of what happened to his wife and won very quickly. He leaves Molly and Walter and tells Bedelia that they are finished. One traumatic event, and Will left. It coincides with something very important that happened here: after this, Will finally figures out Hannibal is truly in love with him. So he goes to Bedelia to discuss it with her.

*Will: Is Hannibal in love with me?*

*Bedelia: Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you ache for him?*

Will is predictably silent. Obviously, if the answer was no, he would have said no. But he struggles because like we established, he has issues with expressing emotions. He only managed to start referring to Hannibal as his friend openly in this season, opening up about some of his feelings, but he’s not ready to go this far. It would be absolutely out of character for Will to say, “Yes, you know, I’m in love with him! Thanks for helping me see it.” Every confession Will makes is preceded by struggles and heartbreak. But he’s going to reply to Bedelia’s question, only not explicitly-verbally.

Will sets up Chilton and then comes to allegedly say good-bye to Hannibal. He lies several times in their conversation (about Chilton and Molly with Walter), so all his words are automatically suspicious. Regardless, he destroys Hannibal emotionally and walks away. Personally, I believe he was already planning to break him out, so he was playing it up for cameras and also taking a chance to hurt Hannibal for everything again. But whatever his plan was, what happens next is that Will conspires with Francis against Jack, Alana, and the FBI. They agree to break Hannibal out together. Will lies to Jack and then gets to ask Hannibal for help. He’s being flirty and manipulative in this scene.

*Will: I need you, Hannibal … You're our best shot, Hannibal. Please.*

He’s smirking, he leans close to Hannibal, he sends him a flirty look from under his eyelashes. Will is thoroughly enjoying himself, and he does it best when he has some excuse to hide behind.

Later, he lies to Jack and Alana again, leaks info to Francis (who nearly killed his wife and son), and gets many officers killed by proxy. He tells Bedelia the truth that he doesn’t “intend Hannibal to be caught a second time.” He also implies that he’s going to let him go free, which is why Bedelia should pack her bags.

*Bedelia: Can't live with him. Can't live without him. Is that what this is?*

This time, Will agrees, although in his way.

*Will: I guess this is my Becoming.*

For Will, Becoming was always connected to his feelings for Hannibal because accepting himself and his darkness meant being free to escape with Hannibal.

*Bedelia: You found religion. Nothing more dangerous than that.*

In E3, it was stated that love is a God (you can find more here https://www.reddit.com/r/HannibalTV/comments/7w54dg/lovegodreligion_s3_parallels/), so it’s possible to say that religion = love in this context. It certainly makes sense. Will is accepting himself and his emotions, and the trigger was establishing for sure that Hannibal is in love with him.

Will and Hannibal drive to the cliff house. When Hannibal asks Will if he intends to save himself by killing them both (Hannibal and Francis), Will replies:

*Will: I don't know if I can save myself. And maybe that's just fine.*

This is the first time he confesses that he might be incapable of killing Hannibal. Predictably, when Francis comes, Will can’t handle seeing Hannibal killed, so he reaches for his gun.

Will and Hannibal work as a unit and protect each other. Hannibal is shot, nearly strangled, thrown onto the ground, and he is still weakly holding on Francis' leg to prevent him from going after Will, even though it leaves him in an open and vulnerable position — Francis does kick him in the face with his other leg. There is fierce determination on Will's face as he stands up despite the pain and runs to save Hannibal. They act in synch, consummating their relationship.

Then, Will admires how blood looks on his hand and repeats Hannibal’s words:

*Will: It really does look black in the moonlight.*

He remembers the words Hannibal said to him weeks ago in one of their endless interactions. A bit earlier, he perfectly recalled the words Hannibal told him *years* ago, back in the middle of S2.

*Will: I understand that “blood and breath are only elements undergoing change to fuel your Radiance." Hannibal said those words. To me.*

So, Will remembers everything Hannibal told him. He stores these memories. It’s a small but still important proof how important Hannibal is for him.

At the cliff, Will finally accepts the truth.

*Hannibal: See. This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.*

We know what Hannibal wanted: a Murder Husband. What does Will say to this?

*Will: It’s beautiful.*

This is a loud “yes” to Bedelia’s question about his feelings. Will acknowledges, accepts, and admires them. He doesn’t feel awkward, as he would if he knew Hannibal is in love with him but didn’t feel the same. No, he reaches forward to embrace him, and such physical contact from Will is mind-blowing because he almost never does it. He clings to Hannibal, puts his head on his shoulder, touches him as if he wants to melt with him. Then he gives the fate a chance to stop both of them or to set them free. They fall into the ocean under the Love Crime song, another romantic element.

Water symbolizes reborn, and post-credits scene indicates that Will and Hannibal have paid a visit to Bedelia and are in the process of eating her while she’s hiding the fork to stab one of them as he approaches. The deleted epilogue to the series shows that they are in perfect harmony now.

**Conclusion**: Will has passed through a long, painful journey. He went from hiding from emotions and deflecting to not denying and carefully acknowledging them. We don’t hear words “love” or “in love” from him in relation to Hannibal because Will is not that kind of person. He doesn’t use these words freely, and for him, every small emotional step is a struggle. He tried to deceive himself and other numerous times; he tied to deny the truth and manipulate his own mind, but with each season, his feelings for Hannibal became more and more explicit. Will reaching out for physical contact, Will saying “It’s beautiful” are his way of saying, “I ached for you. I love you.”

This is a story of mutual love and obsession, about soulmates, about unique type of connection that few people share. It’s not about Hannibal falling in love and Will not feeling the same. Their feelings are equally strong, but they express them differently, particularly as Will’s are tied to the acceptance of his own darkness.

#will graham #hannibal lecter #hannigram #nbc hannibal #murder husbands

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agent-cupcake · 3 years

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I don't know if you've touched upon this in your asks before, but I find the way Claude's parents treated him as a kid upsetting. When he misbehaved he got dragged behind a horse and they apparently left him on his own to be bullied by his half-brothers and survive assassination attempts. I want to give my poor boy a hug. :(

I’m not sure I’ve ever specifically talked about this, but I agree! Compared to Edelgard and Dimitri, his childhood wasn’t as overtly awful, but it obviously left him with some severe scars (his trust issues, being an outcast, knowing that he has to cover physical weakness by being smarter than everyone else) and it is really sad. Like, yes, meme man deer boy haha, but also... Poor kid?

I think the writing for Claude’s background is pitch perfect. Just the WAY he describes that story about being dragged by a horse is heartbreaking cause he’s so casual like “lol yeah my parents thought it was hilarious to torment me” then quickly moves on because Hilda’s rightfully horrified by it. But, in context, that’s clearly meant as an ice breaker or joke, not that serious to his which is also so human because it was normalized. Joking and making light of trauma is possibly one of the best coping mechanisms there is. It’s also interesting that Claude never really seems to hold any disdain for his parents despite the fact that they betrayed him in basically every way a parent could. He just addresses things as they were and rationalizes his upbringing while still maintaining a positive, or at least working, relationship with his parents. To me, this is a very nuanced take on people’s interactions with their families. Claude places a lot more of the blame on circumstances. That’s especially apparent in this line: “But in the right environment, anyone could be seen as an outsider. It can become…overwhelming. That’s why I kept running. Kept fighting. As a kid I spent a lot of time licking my wounds and coming up with schemes, trying to keep my nose out of trouble while plotting against my enemies. My parents always told me I wouldn’t grow stronger if I didn’t learn to fight my own battles. And so, in the end, I did. And I grew up to be as independent and self-reliant as my parents always wished for me to be. Lucky me, right?” Obviously, there’s that tone of ironic bitterness, but it’s kind of passive. It seems like Claude regrets that that’s how it happened because he obviously lost a lot in the process of learning self-reliance, but acknowledging that it did ultimately make him a more capable person to play the bad hand he was dealt in being born of mixed parentage. Which is just... really sad.

Despite not being as dramatic as some of the others, Claude’s story a lot more realistic, or at least relatable. Like Dimitri and Edelgard, he never had agency in the circumstances of which he developed, stripped of a childhood and forced to grow up quickly for the sake of self-preservation. Although, in his case, I think it made him a lot more mature. Not so much in emotional ways, but in a very practical sense. Dimitri and Edelgard grew up in a chrysalis of trauma, developed in some ways but still very immature in others. Neither of them have ever had to be independent and take care of themselves, even when drowning in isolation and pain. There’s also something to be said for the fact that they both had people who loved and unconditionally cared for them, even if the bad ultimately outweighed the good. They both know how to recognize and reach out for that, as evidenced by the unhealthy bond they form with Byleth. Claude didn’t have that. I don’t recall that he mentions any close friends and his family was a mess. Obviously nobody stuck up for him. Not that he needs to talk about it, as his difficulty forming actual trusting bonds with others is enough of an indication that he missed out on those emotionally formative experiences. Just because he was able to take it on the chin and jokes about it doesn’t make the things he describes and the way his childhood affected him any less tragic. When people brush over his past just because it’s not as overtly awful as some of the other characters, it strips away context for a lot of the most interesting and morally questionable aspects of his character.

TD;LR sorry for the rant, I wholeheartedly agree with you and will do anything to avoid my finals and talking about Claude for an hour is therapeutic. We should all give him a hug.

#fire emblem three houses #claude von riegan #fe claude #Anonymous

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yan-twst · 4 years

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hey there! i love your work! can i request the dorm leaders + their darling dying? particularly if it was due to an accident, the dorm leader’s own actions/punishments, or even (if you’re comfortable writing about the topic) by their own hand? thank you! 💞 i hope you’re doing well ~

warnings: this is just dark like very dark and messed up! mentions of death, violence, abuse, blood, self harm- like, everything like that is here. on top of that general yandere warnings. this one is heavy on violence and abuse so please be careful when reading if this could affect you! (-｡-;) also lots of mentions of stuff that could be potentially triggering to people with eating disorders!

riddle rosehearts

he didn't mean to. that's all he can think of as he watches his darling lay on the floor of his room, blood slowly pooling under them. he's shaking and hyperventilating- no he didn't mean to he didn't mean to hedidn'tmeantohedidn'tmeanto-

he feels like throwing up as he backs away. it was over so quickly- he just didn't mean to get so angry, but he did, and all it took was one swing of his staff against his darling's head and a sickening crack and now they're- they're-

he forces himself to search for a pulse, but his hands are shaking too hard. his darling can't die, this can't be real; he wouldn't ever hurt them badly...! but their body is slowly growing cold under his hands, and he's feeling sicker and sicker by the second

he wishes he could just die in their place- what did he do? when trey finds him sobbing over his darling's body, the third year assumes that riddle's darling collapsed and hit their head; riddle is too shaken to deny this. everyone in heartslabyul believed that his relationship was perfect, nobody would suspect he'd been the one to deliver the final blow: and it makes him sick

he stops eating, stops attending classes, and lets himself slowly waste away in his bed. it's bad enough that crowley considers sending him home, but trey quickly objects: the last thing riddle needs is his mother's treatment... everyone tries to help him cope, help him move on, but he just doesn't get better. he doesn't want to get better, not when the guilt is eating him alive.

he feels like his darling is watching him, even after their death. it's like a punch in the gut, thinking of all he did: he was a kidnapper and a manipulator and an abuser and he killed them, he killed his lover who he kept by his side by force- the thoughts make him even sicker. he's slowly wasting away, refusing food and water...

the only way to save him at this point would be a spell to make him forget his darling ever existed... and his friends are so desperate to at least save him- thinking that he's just a mourning lover who lost his beloved too quickly- that it's not too unreasonable to expect them to do so.

leona kingscholar

those close to him knew he didn't mind getting a bit... rough, with his beloved. whether it was the servants back at home, or ruggie who didn't want to get on leona's bad side, nobody interfered: after all, they always claimed they were fine and happy with leona! ... though most of the times leona was keeping a tight grip on theis shoulder as they spoke those words

it's nobody's shock when a mysterious deep scratch becomes seriously infected on them. both leona and his darling deny that he was the one who caused it- but... well, it's clear to those who knew of how violent leona could be when unhappy with his darling that he was the only possible culprit.

the fact leona has terrified his darling into complete submission and obedience now shows its deadly side, as it turns out they'd been hiding the highly infected scratch from him in fear of repercussions, and when medics have a look at it, his darling is at death's door. he barely has time to process what's happening, before his feverish darling just... passes away in their sleep, with no chance to even call a magic healer who could have helped

nobody has seek leona in worse shape before. he doesn't even attend the funeral, and he doesn't let anyone (not even ruggie) get near him- he appears like a feral beast, destroying anyone and anything that crosses his path. his mourning is destructive, and it doesn't take long for him to be called back home before he turns the whole savanaclaw dorm to sand

he's inconsolable, and he doesn't let anyone near. he knew very well that what he was doing to his darling- keeping them under his control by taking advantage of their fear, forcing them to play the part of the "happy lover" despite them being terrified of him- was wrong, but in the end, he loved them more than anything.

and in their own way, he knew they loved him: even when they had the chance, they never begged his brother or crowley for help... almost as if they believed he could change for the better. but he didn't, he essentially killed them.

he'll just isolate himself. go somewhere far away where he can misserably live the rest of his days alone. all he does is sleep and mourn, hunting to feel relief from his pain in the form of violence- but even then... he's just never coming back from this

azul ashengrotto

he just wanted to teach them a lesson. once again his darling had tried to escape him, to escape his love, even though they'd sworn to stay with him- even though they'd signed a contract promising to stay- so he'd punished them accordingly. after a painful, near-drowning dip in the freezing cold ocean, he'd just left them in the bathroom to cry and beg for mercy... but when he came back less than a day later, they were just... dead on the ground

hypothermia. his darling's blue fingers, their huddled up form as they tried to preserve heat in their last moments: he feels himself grow lightheaded and tears blur his vision as he picks up their cold, lifeless corpse. how...? it's too late when he notices the place where he left them: there's no towels, no hot water, and the temperature is cold. the fact his darling was just violently dragged around the freezing cold waters before- the fact they were already weak from being kept in captivity...

the twins arrive immediately when they hear azul's screams and wails coming from the bath. there's not even a chance to ask what happened: he's crying, sobbing as he apologises to his darling's cold, damp corpse. the eels quickly realize what's happening- and though upset, jade immediately volunteers to hide the corpse. they have to, or else they're all in serious trouble. floyd has to pretty much tear the corpse out of azul's grip.

azul feels like shit, he wishes he'd died in their place- but he doesn't want to be imprisoned. he didn't mean to- how could he ever want the person most important for him to die?! the general student body interprets his mourning and guilt as the reaction to his darling "mysteriously going mising"- each time someone tells him they hope that his beloved is found soon, he wishes he could just die on the spot

he doesn't have a will to take care of himself or the lounge anymore- all his duties fall onto Jade. watch what he eats? who cares- not him. he swings from eating whatever he wants to try and fill the void in his heart to going days on end without even leaving his bed- it's unhealthy and it's worrying, but... what can he do? he killed his darling, left them to die alone- he deserves nothing.

kalim al-asim

it's everything he feared, happening at once. just one time- one time- he takes his darling out to eat because they've been behaving so well and it's their anniversary- and they look so happy to be out of their chains and out of their room! and then- and then they take a bite of their food and it's nearly inmediate, they collapse and cough, and then it's over.

he should've known better. he HAD to know better. hadn't he been telling his darling the reason why they had to stay locked inside was for their safety? hadn't he promised he wouldn't allow them to be harmed? this- this had happened before with jamil, but jamil had lived. his darling died.

his guilt and pain are immeasurable. he cries during the funeral, loud enough that even his own family feels like they can't approach him. even jamil can't help but feel bad- even knowing all what kalim did to his darling. it's like the spark inside of him was extinguished, all his joy snuffed out

he commissions paintings and works of art of his late darling to an almost terrifying degree. he needs to keep them around, to keep something that makes him feel like they aren't gone, but everytime he gazes at the expensive oil paintings of his darling, he's crushed by pain and becomes as inconsolable as the day they died

there's no more parties. how could he possibly throw a party- no, how could he possibly dare search for happiness knowing what happened? he feels like he doesn't deserve comfort or joy. he turns down all of his friends and family's attempts to help. he feels like hurting and being misserable is the only way to make it up to his darling, even in death

he'll pretend to move on, for everyone's sake- it's painfully obvious he's faking his happiness, but... nobody knows what to do to help, so they just accept his poor acting. nobody brings up how he sleeps cuddled with golden chains (that only jamil knows were the ones used to keep his darling in their room), or how he keeps all his darling's belongings untouched like if they could return any day- in the same way nobody, not even jamil, acts like they notice the scars that appear on his skin, which was once unmarked.

vil schoenheit

he knew that using so much love potion had to have... some negative side effect. however, he saw it as a necessary side effect; his darling was just lost and needed a bit of help to love him! besides, he himself brewed the potion with the highest quality ingredients, and sure it was worrying that his darling was becoming resistant and needed larger and larger doses each time, but he never expected them to just... drop dead when he gave them their morning's dose of potion.

love potion overdose- now that was a way to die that didn't appear in any textbook. vil wouldn't be able to process the events: his darling just fainted, right? how silly! he'll just- he'll just tuck them into bed, they need beauty sleep, and he'll... and then he'll...

when he finally feels his darling's cold body, with no heartbeat as he places a hand on their chest, it feels like the world is falling around him. how was he supposed to know this could happen?! he tries as many healing and health potions as he can, but... in the end, he specializes in poisons, and his darling is already dead. it's merely a fool's errand

he cries. he crie and cries- how dare his darling die?! how dare they abandon him?! he wails until his eyes are red and puffy, until his makeup is ruined. he doesn't know what to do; he doesn't want anyone to see his darling like this. soon enough death will take its toll on their beauty- the thought makes him feel even worse.

just like how the dwarves in the ancient legend preserved the princes's body in a clear casket to admire her beauty even after death, vil will do exactly that. finding a spell to preserve his darling's body is exhausting, and he risks his own skin by losing sleep and stressing over it (he's running against the clock and he knows it. he has to hurry, before his darling's beauty fades), but he's successful

he keeps his darling- a corpse that won't decompose, their body cold but skin as soft as when they lived- in a glass casket in his room. everyday, he carefully does their makeup and dresses them up, still making them go through his skincare routine even after death. in all honesty, the routine is what manages to keep him from losing his mind; he doesn't see how misserable he is, desperately taking care of a corpse.

he has to work harder on his makeup now. no matter how much he tries, he can barely sleep: he tries so hard to push back the thoughts that plague his mind (the thoughts that tell him if he'd been a better lover his darling would be alive, that if he'd been better his darling would have loved him without the need of a potion, that he was the one harming them from the very start whenever he knowingly destroyed their self esteem so he could manipulate them with more ease)- everyone bites back comments in fear of invoking his anger, but... it's visible, how much he's suffering.

idia shroud

is this the gods' punnishment for his actions? does he just deserve nothing in life? he holds his darling's lifeless corpse in his hands and wails. he doesn't even know how they died- was it just too much? the isolation, the stress... he thought he was doing a good job at caring for them, but clearly he wasn't, was he?

he'll rebuild them- he'll bring them back. he doesn't care how unethical it is- he has to get his darling back. what were all his efforts up until now for? stalking, kidnapping his darling; was he truly about to throw away all that work? he wasn't- not at all

he tries his best to keep ortho in the darl about the truth. no, no- his darling is just... taking a nap. yes, a special nap, suspended in a mysterious blue fluid in a large tube in idia's room- just... a nap... of course the younger shroud doesn't believe this, but even the child can see the pain in idia's eyes and doesn't question further

it's because of ortho's concerns that idia doesn't spiral into absolute missery: otherwise, he doesn't even know if he'd have the will to keep living without his darling. the younger one cheers him on, telling him that he'll absolutely succeed! ... even if idia has low hopes on actually managing to artificially revive his darling, his brother's words keep him going

he takes to talking to his darling's corpse, suspended and preserved in the tube. he'll save them soon. he'll make it so they can walk around his room again- he even promises to let them go out if he just manages to finish the work- he just has to work harder. he needs to work more.

he has no clue how long it'll take him, or if he'll even succeed. but he has to keep going. there's only two things keeping him alive- ortho, and the need to hold his darling again. he needs them. he has to get them back.

malleus draconia

there's always a level of risk when applying a sleeping curse, of course. he knows this very well, but he trusts his magic. he knows he's good at what he does; so why has his darling's heart stopped beating...?

he'd grown so used to simply casting the spell when he went to class and undoing it when he returned, he almost missed the change and left for class. but he did notice- when he cast the spell, instead of falling into a peaceful sleep... his darling seemeed to jerk awake for a second, then close their eyes: and after that, he couldn't see the rise and fall of their chest. a nervous hand pressed against their chest, and found no heartbeat

he's lost and scared. suddenly, he doesn't feel like Malleus Draconia, ruler of the dark fae- suddenly he feels like he's a little baby again, crying because he's scared of thunder. all he can do is fall back in shock and call for lilia- please. please come help him. he made a mistake.

lilia can comprehend very well what happened. the sleeping spell failed- perhaps malleus' darling was too frail, their constitution worsened by the constant sleep and captivity. there's nothing the ancient fae can do: once death has taken a human, they're gone. all he can do is hug malleus, to try and comfort him like he used to when the dark fae was a child.

malleus knew that humans had short lifespans. lilia had warned him about this, about the pain human lovers would bring; that was one of the reasons why he'd brought his darling to his dorm and forbidden them from leaving, so he could do the most with the time they had. and yet- even for a human, this was too soon. far too soon. how could life be so cruel? how could he lose the one person who understood him and loved him? perhaps everyone was right to steer away from him. perhaps he did just bring misfortune wherever he went

lilia, silver, and sebek can only watch as malleus becomes lonelier than ever. the dark fae has rarely mourned before- and even though lilia is trying his best to guide the young lord through the process of grieving, malleus is just not taking it well at all. he killed his beloved- as much as his dormmates try to convince him it was a freak accident, that he had no hand in it, he knows better. perhaps what hurts him the most is his darling's peaceful face after they passed- they never held such an expression around him, not since he took them captive... were they so happy to have escaped him, even if it meant death?

#twisted wonderland x reader #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twst #riddle rosehearts #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto #kalim al asim #vil schoenheit #idia shroud #malleus draconia

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thejolteonmastertjspoilers · 4 years

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The Monoma Meta Nobody Asked For

I don’t remember who it was on Reddit that said it makes sense for Monoma to be one of the most empathetic characters in BNHA cuz of his Quirk, (his quirk allows him to walk in the shoes of other people in ways most will never be able to even if for 5 minutes at a time), but let’s talk about it for a minute.

Monoma is a character full of contradictions but there’s a method to the madness.

Let’s take a real deep look at the manga shall we?

It’s pretty much canon that Monoma trash talks 1-A so much in-part b/c he cares that much... too much... about his own classmates. It’s implicitly obvious based on the way he interacts with his classmates and phrases his rants at class 1-A.

The fact that he’s obviously influenced by Vlad is just the cherry on top.

He’s prideful of not just himself but also his friends. Let’s break down the nuances there.

Ch196 above, Ch207 below.

Empathy

The kid has a way with words.

The kid has a weirdly poetic way with words.

He goes out of his way to encourage or reassure his classmates in a deeply thoughtful manner at every given opportunity.

He hyped up Setsuna Tokage before her battle with Bakugo and we saw him grin in pride when Komori took down Tokoyami.

Whenever Monoma does criticize his classmates, it’s always frank, honest, but constructive, with the intention to help them improve. He’s even contrasted with his own teacher for being relatively more kind in the delivery of his criticism (see the next screenshot). Given that Monoma’s shown to be strongly influenced by Vlad, this particular difference stands out.

You never see an anime/manga character get fancifully philosophical & genuinely helpful like this unless they are an adult, usually the MC’s mentor. Monoma’s legit acting more like an anime mentor than any of Deku’s multiple mentors. lmfaooo.

Realistically speaking, all of this, the philosophical speeches & level-headed advice, takes an incredible amount of emotional & mental labor. The kid’s practically doing half of Vlad’s job for him.

It’s during the joint training arc we begin to see why his classmates put up with him and are on friendly terms despite how obnoxious & cheesy he can be & how often they need to keep him in check.

It’s clear even as far back as the sports festival that his classmates don’t actually hate him, despite the smacks & tough love they also just shake their heads with a smile on their face as they say “sorry about him,” cuz that’s just the way he is. They love him anyways.

He’s an annoying little sh*t but he’s their annoying little sh*t. Perhaps they even realize why he acts the way he does towards class 1-A, it’s because he cares too much.

Sketch translated by @aitaikimochi

Putting Up An Act

I think there’s actually even more to it when it comes to his rowdy & brash behaviors.

Monoma is empathetic because of how his Quirk works. He needs to learn to use the Quirks of others in order to become a hero. In doing so he logically needs to become privy to all the Quirk’s weaknesses, not just their strengths. Not only does he need to become privy to these often deeply personal details of one’s lived life, he needs to experience them, even if for just five minutes at a time. It’s natural, even necessary, for Monoma to become exceptionally close to his classmates.

But he’s only like that because of how his Quirk works. It’s his naturally nurtured self. His conscious self, though, is notably different.

What we see when Monoma says he and Shinsou need to do unheroic things to get by is not his naturally nurtured self, but is a conscious decision.

At some point in his life, Monoma came to the conclusion that being too kindhearted all the time will be weakness. This is clearly implied, almost outright stated when we heard Monoma’s thoughts when faced with Deku’s Black Whip, “All of the hopes and dreams in my mind from when I was younger are gradually becoming these heavy burdens... like some sort of curse.” I am 99.999% sure it’s Monoma’s thoughts being shown there because the speech pattern & context don’t match up to Shinsou or Midoriya at all.

Basically, Monoma is a little sh*t because he saw his own empathy as a weakness, and overcompensates for it. He’s trained himself to be brash & mischievous, likely from a very young age given how consistently brash he is. We can see a little bit of this when interacting with his class-B classmates as well.

It was @thyandrawrites who first noticed this in this post, but here we see Monoma scolding Kendou after losing the beauty contest, giving perhaps too much tough love & TetsuTetsu steps in to Kendou’s defense.

Given how Monoma during the Joint Training arc clearly said everything he did to motivate his friends to do better, this is likely not an isolated occurrence. The dude cares way too goddamn much for anyone’s good.

Yet there’s something else up with the guy too, something else that contributes even more to his unhealthy obsession with the rivalry vs class-A. The dude has some serious self-esteem issues but is too prideful to seek real help.

Self-doubt

The fact that he’s the only member of class-B who failed the midterm despite having an intelligence stat of 5/5 speaks for itself.

Him failing the academic exam would be a sign of serious issues going on under the surface in itself, him failing the practical means he probably failed b/c he couldn’t hold his own and his teammate had to pick up the slack.

Him failing b/c he held back his teammate would have hit very close to home since we now know he was told “You can’t be a hero if you can’t do anything yourself” since he was a kid.

Basically, yet another reason he continues to antagonize class-A is a textbook example of someone pushing their insecurities onto someone or something else.

For something often played off as comedic relief there’s a lot of layers as to why Monoma does what he does.

But wait, there’s f*cking more. There’s actually a particular reason Monoma expresses his insecurities in this unhealthy manner, and that reason ties into what I’ve already begun to address about his empathy.

Another Act

I don’t think it’s accident that the first time we see him have a real heart-to-heart with someone is when he’s attempting to do it for the sake of someone else. Even if it is in a clumsy manner that ends up annoying Shinsou, it’s the intent I’m interested in here.

We almost never see Monoma receive or accept praise or reassurance, he’s always the one giving it. He always makes it a point to put himself in the position where he’s being the emotionally strong one.

He got over class 1-A securing their victory exceptionally fast, ready to put on a strong face for Tokage and the rest of his class.

The few times we do see him genuinely depressed, he’s distancing himself from others.

He’s afraid of holding others back not just as a hero, but emotionally as well. His instinct to be emotionally strong for the people he cares about stems not just from his strong empathy and caring nature nature itself, but also from his pride, insecurities and conscious decision to do everything he can do.

This is why he’s too prideful to seek or accept real emotional help & ends up venting his emotions in unhealthy & destructive ways.

His many depictions as an actor of sorts was intentional. He juggles many acts, he puts on an act of emotional strength for his classmates, and he puts on an act of cruelty to get by as a hero. To antagonize people in an attempt to throw them off their game. Sometimes... oftentimes even, he misapplies these charades & gets carried away. Oftentimes he fails entirely, he’s trying to do some hella complex things for a kid.

Finally, His Pride

Let’s not kid ourselves here, the dude has a major superiority/inferiority complex. He fails to see how needlessly cruel he’s being when saying class-A asked to be attacked by villains etc.

I’m willing to bet he’ll be in a phase denial for a while now that Class-B and Class-A have gotten more openly friendly in recent chapters. But because he cares so much about his classmates he’ll likely eventually come around to adjusting to a new frenemy relationship with 1-A... with much difficulty when we take his pride, insecurities & self-righteous envy into account.

He’ll probably end up being Tsundere about everything to protect his ego and so Horikoshi can keep using him for comedic relief lol. Even if he does realize a lot of what he’s done was f*ked up, he’s too brash of a prankster to ever go fully soft on them either.

TL;DR... Monoma is a piece of mf work. Not surprising really.

#I overanalyze the comedic relief character #Someone stop me #TJ overanalysis #bnha meta #neito monoma #monoma neito #monoma #bnha spoilers #bnha manga #bnha #My Hero Academia #boku no hero academia #class 1b #bnha class b #bnha class 1b #vlad king

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dathen · 4 years

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All of this and also I love the contrast of low empathy Martin who tries his ass off to be a good and kind person and a caregiver anyway, versus hyper empathetic Jon who isolates and repress himself and initially tries to keep people at arms length and is prickly. Cause having too much can be overwhelming instead of practical and doesn't necessarily make you 'nice'. (reply from @sirmarsian )

Oh boy this is some MAJOR projection territory, but I have so many feelings about it!!

For one, I love the headcanon for why he sounds so much more emotive when reading statements than any of the others, Martin included--he gets so deep into them beyond the supernatural level that affects everyone. I could imagine hyper-empathy just making that exponentially stronger.

Also the way Jon keeps others at a distance? And HOW MUCH he changes as soon as he allows himself to get close?? It was never a matter of “Jon teaching himself to care,” but rather Jon letting himself care. Which...gets to an extreme that’s downright unhealthy, when he lets it.

Hyper-empathy feels like....having super over-sensitive hearing, but emotionally. I had to change majors from nursing because my entire body would hurt from empathetic pain just hearing about injuries. I cried for three days after a coworker lost her cat. Secondhand embarrassment is like being dunked into lava. Interacting with people going through grief can be so painful there’s a huge urge to just avoid them entirely. In fact, that last one can easily become a lifestyle--just insulate and shut down and not let yourself think about it.

I could totally see that in how Jon responds to the statements he knows are real in season 1--he just finished living through that person’s experience, but the response to being so overwhelmed is to just seal it off and pretend it away (which also ties into the “how coping mechanisms can still hurt other people” discussion!). Jon’s past habits of self-isolating and keeping people at arm’s length also fits this so well, because as soon as he lets go of that, he’s just....a constant raw nerve. I wasn’t able to find a lot of great resources on it, but going down a ‘common symptoms’ list, you got:

- Going to great lengths to avoid provoking strong negative emotions in others (arguing against going with the team for drinks in s4, tiptoeing around asking Questions in s3, sneaking away from Basira to give a statement he feels may upset her in TMA 179)

- Being unable to let go of something happening to someone else, to the point of barely being able to function (fixating on Daisy being trapped or Martin’s isolation)

- Bonding so quickly with someone whose struggle he relates to (becoming friends with Daisy despite being traumatized from her, his entire meeting with Gerry)

- “Allowing others to be unkind to you because you feel sorry for them” (where do I even START)

- Feeling ‘flooded’ with pain for someone else, but being at a loss of how to express sympathy or comfort (the constant stream of apologizing for things he’s not even connected to)

- Difficulty parsing your own emotions/separating them from how you feel about others’ (”I feel......sad. Very sad.” “ It’s hard to know how I feel about anything these days.”)

Like I know this is firmly in headcanon territory since we have so many factors feeding into all of this, supernatural and otherwise, but tbh that just ends up making the whole show feel like a metaphor for hyper-empathy and burnout/compassion fatigue to me.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #tma spoilers #I GOT SOME NEWS AND BLUESCREENED FOR A GOOD HALF HOUR UHHH but i'm posting this anyway bc i worked hard on it #now back to bluescreening

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rocorambles · 4 years

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Timeout - Part 2

Pairing: Kageyama x Reader

Genre/Warning: Yandere, Unhealthily controlling behavior, Toxic Relationships, Isolation

Summary: Kageyama just wants to take care of you, so why won’t you just behave?

Requested by Anon

Part 1

You don’t see the basement ever again and your night there fades from your mind like a bad dream as Kageyama and you fall back into a comfortable cadence together. You love him with all your heart, you truly do. You love going on jogs with him even as your legs tremble from exertion and sweat glistens your brows. You love watching his eyes light up in excitement as he sets perfectly to Ushijima and turns to you with a wide grin on his face after his team scores a point. You love watching his brows wrinkle in concentration as he takes painstaking care to cook both of you a healthy meal. But even as you smile fondly at the sleeping figure next to you and trace random designs on his rising and falling chest at night when the two of you lay in bed, there’s a slight pang in your heart as your thighs clench and you wistfully think of the last time the two of you had made love. It seems so long ago and you can’t even clearly remember the last time the two of you had even kissed. Sure, he lets you hold his calloused hands as much as you want and allows himself to be drawn into your embrace, but it’s not enough. Surely there’s nothing wrong, nothing disgusting about you wanting more physical intimacy with your long-term boyfriend that you share a home with, right? But Kageyama’s always been strict and restrained when it comes to all types of pleasure and in turn, he holds you to the same restrictions, making sure neither of you become too self-indulgent.

You try to push it to the back of your mind, successfully laying it to rest as you enjoy the time you spend with your lover. You don’t necessarily agree with Kageyama on everything, but you know everything he says and does comes out of love and care for you and if the only penalty is less sex and a little less freedom, so be it. Every day feels like a routine and at first you fidget and itch for more, but you quickly settle into the comfortable monotony of your shared life, finding tranquility in the steady and constant flow. Which is why you’re startled to say the least when you’ve already got your bags packed, ready to tag along with Kageyama as his team travels for an away game this weekend, but Kageyama just smiles at you and tells you to put away your things.

“You’ve been so good recently that I figured you might like some alone time to catch up and hang out with your girlfriends. It’s been awhile since you’ve seen them, right?”

Confused, but excited, you eagerly nod and Kageyama’s heart warms at the way your eyes sparkle. He’d have to thank Hinata for the idea later. Unknown to you, the two had briefly ran into each other and caught up, sharing about their relationships and he’d been surprised when Hinata had casually mentioned that his girlfriend was out of town, spending the week away with some friends and having a “girl’s trip”. He found the idea of you being away from him for so long with people he didn’t know very well unsettling, but as Hinata continued to rave about how healthy it was to have some time apart and how nice it was to have your own same gender friends to chat with, he pondered the idea more. Hinata certainly seemed happy and content with his relationship. Maybe there’s something to be said about this crazy idea after all.

But Kageyama’s not nearly as lax as Hinata and there are some rules and agreements set in place before he heads out. Be home by 10pm. Call him when you wake up and before you go to sleep. And the hard rules both of you live by still stand. No drugs. No alcohol. You can’t help but think he sounds even more strict than the summer camps you’d been to as a child and that it seems silly for a woman in her 20s to have a curfew, but your excitement at being able to hang out with all your girlfriends helps you fling those thoughts to the side as you hurriedly rush to your phone and message your friends.

Kageyama didn’t have anything against your friends, but he was insistent on the two of you always being together in your free time, leaving little room for you see you friends in person, so your phone explodes with messages as your friends quickly eat up the opportunity to have a long overdue girls weekend with you. That Friday night, despite the fact that the bed is colder than usual and overwhelmingly large without Kageyama’s presence beside you, you fall asleep with a smile on your face, your heart warm and aflutter at the prospect of seeing your dearest friends for the first time in ages.

The sun has barely risen, but you’re already wide awake and scouring your closet for the perfect outfit to wear, finally settling on a sweater and jeans paired with a strappy set of heels you know Kageyama disapproves of, always worried that you might twist your ankle. But today’s a special day and you know for a fact that these heels make your ass and legs look amazing. The morning flies by as you prance around the empty house to an upbeat playlist, going through your skincare routine and applying makeup for the first time in months. You usually save it for special occasions and date nights, but when Kageyama had realized how unhealthy restaurant food was, eating out became a thing of the past and the two of you mostly stayed at home becoming homebodies. Satisfied with your appearance you make your way to the restaurant your friends had chosen for brunch and after a flurry of warm hugs and giddy greetings, all of you sit down and peruse the menu.

Your friends gleefully look over the brunch cocktails and look at you in surprise when you order a cup of coffee instead. It’s such a different choice than the college senior partier in you would have made all those years ago, but when they question you about it, you just laugh it off and tell them Kageyama doesn’t approve of drinking, so you’d cut it out of your life after the two of you started dating. A knot forms in your stomach at the concerned looks they send your way and share among each other and you try to assure them that it’s fine, completely normal couple behavior, but they aren’t having any of your excuses and the knot tightens as their interrogation continues.

“He doesn’t let you drink at all?”

“He monitors and controls everything you eat?”

“He times how long you sleep for every night?”

“You guys haven’t had sex in months?”

You slap a hand over your friend’s mouth as that scandalous question comes out louder than intended, but you bite your bottom lip as you slowly nod in response and you can feel warmth rising to your face as tears threaten to overflow from the looks of pity being directed at you. The friend whose mouth you’re still covering gently holds your hand on her face and brings it into her lap before quietly asking, “Is Kageyama also the reason we never see you anymore?” and that’s all it takes for you to quietly sob when realization hits you and you see Kageyama’s toxic control for what it is. And yet, a small part of you can’t help but defend him, and you try to reason with your friends, telling them that he doesn’t mean for any of it to be toxic, he doesn’t mean to be a control freak. He just does these things because he cares, but your words fall flat even to your own ears as you suddenly vividly remember the cold, lonely night in that basement. Your eyes narrow and you sharply wave to a nearby waiter.

“Let’s change that coffee to a mimosa.”

You’re all successful career-oriented women and yet, all it takes is a few, okay maybe more than just a few, rounds of drinks for all of you to feel like you’re back to your senior college days and you’re having the time of your life. Your belly is aching from how hard you’re laughing and there’s a constant buzz in your body, in your soul as the alcohol takes effect and you can’t stop the loopy smile on your face. You don’t remember who was the ringleader, but all of you somehow find yourselves shopping for clubbing outfits as you get roped into a girl’s night out and as you stare at your reflection in a changing room mirror, pleased by the way the strappy number highlights your curves and barely covers your chest and ass, you briefly worry about Kageyama’s reaction to you being out so late and drinking, but you scoff, empowered by the liquid courage running within you and your re-found confidence.

The night is a blur of shots and dancing. Your tolerance for alcohol is barely existent and you don’t remember much other than your feet aching from standing on your heels all night, being sandwiched between your girlfriends on the dance floor, and a jolt of irritation at feeling your phone continuously vibrate as Kageyama tried to reach you. Yet somehow you make it safely back home and you promptly collapse on the soft sheets, not bothering to remove your makeup, clothes, or shoes as you fall into a deep slumber.

You wake up hours later with a groan, a raging headache pounding at your temples as the sunlight begins to filter in through the windows. You groggily sit up and attempt to get out of bed to completely shut the window blinds when you freeze as you lock gazes with cold blue eyes. Nauseous, completely sober, and still dazed from exhaustion, you tremble as Kageyama continues furiously scowling at you, unable to muster even an ounce of the courage you had yesterday.

“32 missed calls. 53 unanswered texts. And 1 response from you, finally.”

Your heart sinks at the photo on his phone and you can only stutter incoherently at the hazy photo your friend had taken of you with a drink in your hand and the middle finger flipped at the camera. You finally try to explain that it was just a joke, that you had too much to drink, but you’re caught off by more harsh words.

“I try to do something nice for you and what do you do? Go against the few rules I gave you and mock me to my face.”

You scramble towards him, momentarily forgetting about the heels still on your feet and you stumble to the floor as he grabs your phone and clutches it tightly in his grip.

“Wait, Tobio. I’m sorry! Don’t take away my phone. How would I even message or call you?”

“You don’t need to message or call me, not when I know where you are 24/7.”

And you flinch. You flinch at the sound of your phone being crushed to pieces, crushed beyond repair as his foot repeatedly stomps on it. You flinch at the look of cold indifference he pins you down with as you scream for him to stop, scream out apology after apology. You flinch at the feeling of his hand roughly grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you to the room you’d desperately tried to forget. You flinch at the biting cold of metal encasing your body as he chains you up once more. And finally you bitterly sob as he walks away from your bound body, turns off the light, and closes the door with a resounding bang, leaving you alone in the dark and isolated prison with no intention to release you anytime soon.

#haikyuu yandere #yandere haikyuu #kageyama x reader #yandere kageyama

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emilyofjane · 3 years

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Why the Disney Princesses definitely need therapy: a Hot Take

Snow White

Losing her parents as a child and having to learn to take care of herself at a very young age (Snow White is 14 in the movie, and judging by her work ethic, she appears to at least have some experience with living independently before moving in with the 7 dwarves)

Lack of socialization due to isolation

Depression due to isolation and loneliness. This makes the whole “Someday My Prince Will Come” thing much more believable, because Snow White really isn’t in any sort of immediate danger and doesn’t need “saving” or whatever; she’s just tired of being alone and wants human companionship. (And tbh who can blame her? The poor girl’s literally talking to birds and moved in with the first group of humanoid creatures she could find ffs)

This one’s a bit of a stretch, but I’m pretty sure Snow White would also have an unhealthy fear of strangers and/or an irrational fear of being poisoned after the whole apple fiasco

Cinderella

Being raised in an abusive home environment for most (if not virtually all) of her life

The complete lack of positive social interaction throughout her life has probably led to problems with social withdrawal and isolation at some point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has repressed symptoms of chronic depression due to loneliness.

Her closest emotional confidants are literally two talking mice, and that just screams “My only friends are animals because their love is unconditional I’ve been invalidated and unloved by every human being in my life” (aka extreme emotional neglect)

She probably has tons of questions about her biological parents that were never answerd because, again, her stepfamily hated her, which would obviously lead to some emotional baggage

If we consider Cinderella III: A Twist in Time to be the new canon, she definitely has some unresolved PTSD from her near-death experience (the “almost getting crushed to death in the carriage because it was transforming back into a pumpkin” scene)

Aurora

Existential crisis because the three fairy godmothers basically rewrote her entire identity as “Rose” and hid the fact that she was a princess

Never knowing who her real parents were as a child, leading to emotional baggage similar to that of Cinderella and Snow White mentioned above

Either the emotional burden of having to make up for 16+ years of lost time with her biological family, or the grief of losing her biological family without ever getting the chance to know them (idk whether Aurora actually got to meet her parents by the end of the movie or if they died before she woke up, because I don’t remember exactly how much time had passed while she was in the coma)

Speaking of the spindle prick-induced magical coma (which is a really long-winded and inefficient way to kill someone honestly, idk what Melificent was thinking), Aurora also has to deal with the emotional burden of how much time has passed while she was in a coma, which would only further feed into the existential crisis and emotional trauma in bullet points 1 and 3.

(Also, off the record, but Aurora’s entire life post-movie is just a hot fucking mess and she really deserves a second movie exploring that concept imo. I know that Sleeping Beauty has already gotten a live-action villain spinoff, but the story of Aurora herself really deserves to be reexamined under a modern lens also. Aurora is easily one of the most overlooked Disney princesses and tbh she deserves more love.)

Belle (feat. the expanded lore from the live-action movie)

Witnessing her mother die from the plague in their own home

Being forceed to move from the more culturally progressive city of Paris to the unnamed “poor provential town” in the movie, where she is clearly the odd one out and is subject to gender inequality on a daily basis (in the form of being publically shamed and socially ostacized for being an educated woman)

Being regularly sexually harassed by Gaston, which is further exacerbated by the villagers and their close-mindedness. Not only is Gaston’s behavior enabled and encouraged by the villagers, but they even go so far as to idolize Gaston — as shown during his namesake song — despite his obviously predatory actions, simply because he is a cishet white man that they find conventionally attractive

Watching her father get arrested despite being 100% innocent...TWICE

Also being arrested when her father is wrongly convicted a second time, by none other than her abuser

Watching her lover — who besides her parents was the first person in her life who truly loved her and respected her intellect despite being a woman — nearly die in her arms, as well as everyone else in the castle (who ALSO respected her regardless of her gender) nearly die at the same exact time.

...And you know, Stockholm Syndrome or whatever. (But tbh, given how everyone in the castle was very kind and respectful and how the Beast was a tsundere at best, Belle would probably suffer far more from PTSD brought upon by Gaston and her previous environment than from “Stockholm Syndrome” in a castle where everyone actually treated her like a normal fucking human being. Unpopular opinion I know but as a sexual assault survivor this is literally a hill I will die on.)

Jasmine

I’ve actually never watched Aladdin all the way through, so unfortunately I can’t give a full analysis of Jasmine’s conflicts...but I have seen that gif of her saying “I am not a prize to be won” and that just screams “I’ve suffered a lifetime of female objectification and gender inequality despite my social status, and not even in the highest position of authority possible am I allowed to have a voice” and idk about you but that is really fucked up man

Ariel

PTSD from being manipulated by Ursula to give up her voice and nearly losing everything (both her previous life in the ocean and the promise of a new life on land with her love interest) because of it

Near-death experience from *vague hand gesture to whatever the fuck that was at the end of the movie*

Inevitable depression from abandoning the only home she’s ever known (the ocean) and leaving her friends and family behind

She’ll probably also need some form of behavioral therapy to help her adjust to her new home on land, whose culture is still extremely foreign to her — and maybe even additional therapy for social anxiety, given how her first 3 days of human interaction were so mortifyingly embarrassing that she’ll probably be laying wide awake at 3 AM and thinking “oh my god I can’t believe I looked Eric’s parents dead in the eyes and brushed my hair with a dinner fork” for the next 10 years.

Tiana

PTSD from literally being turned into a frog

Overworking herself to the point of near burnout, and being unable to fully live out her prime adult years because of said burnout

Constantly dealing with shitty customers, bosses, and other white-collared people disrespecting her and treating her as subhuman because of her career choice, which is unfortunately a common shared experience among restaurant workers and those who work hourly wages

Since this movie takes place in the United States presumably before the 1960’s, it’s probably safe to assume that Tiana also probably had to deal with segregation, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of racism off-screen on a daily basis, which would obviously take a toll on her mental well-being and further exacerbate the issues mentioned in #3

Grief from losing her dad, which has likely been repressed due to her workaholic tendencies denying her the ability to properly take the time to mourn

I don’t even know what to categorize the whole witch doctor shenanigans as, I just know that she and Naveen are both going to need some SERIOUS therapy after going through all that shit

Rapunzel

Being raised in an emotionally abusive and controlling environment for her entire life

Being completely isolated for 18 years with no social interaction whatsoever with anyone except her own abuser

Existential/identity crisis from discovering that she’s actually a princess, that her “mom” was actually the one who kidnapped her as a baby and tried to cut her hair, and that everything she knew about herself and the world she lived in was essentially a lie to keep her obedient to Gothel

Near-death experience (the drowning scene)

Internalized fear and mistrust in strangers — and quite possibly in people in general — due to Gothel’s lifelong warnings that people in the outside world would only want to take advantage of her

Watching the woman who raised her MERCILESSLY STAB THE ONLY OTHER PERSON SHE EVER KNEW AND LOVED IN THE GODDAMN CHEST

Watching the woman who raised her LITERALLY CRUMBLE TO DUST IN FRONT OF HER VERY EYES

WATCHING FLYNN, THE ONLY OTHER PERSON SHE EVER KNEW AND LOVED BESIDES HER GODDAMN ABUSER, FUCKING DIE RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER before she miraculously healed him

Because Flynn’s revival was such an uncanny revival that not even Rapunzel knew how she did it, she obviously thought he was gone for good...and since Gothel was gone also, there must’ve been at least a split second before she healed Flynn where, for the first time in her entire life, she was completely and utterly alone. That alone deserves to be a bullet point because holy shit

I’m not even going to get into Tangled: the Series man this list is getting too long as it is

Elsa

Losing her parents at a young age

Abandonment and isolation issues (mostly self-inflicted due to her own fear of hurting others, see #3)

Internalized fear and self-doubt of her powers — and, by extension, fear and self-doubt in herself

Guilt from nearly plunging Arendelle into an eternal winter

Guilt from almost losing her sister (twice!) due to her own direct actions

(Coinciding with #3) Guilt from isolating herself from her sister to protect her, only to nearly get her killed by the very thing she was trying to protect her from

Anxiety. Just lots and lots of general anxiety.

(Omitting Frozen 2 for Elsa because I haven’t seen it yet and this list is getting too long)

Anna

Also losing her parents at a young age

Abandonment and isolation issues, but hers are moreso due to Elsa “shutting her out” as a kid and having no one else her age in the castle to interact with

Lack of socialization in general for much of her childhood, as well as any social anxieties/lack of social knowledge and etiquette/etc. that would come with it

Abusive relationship with Hans (I know it was only one day, but holy fuck that was a trainwreck. What Hans did to Anna is a literal breeding ground for PTSD and trauma)

Coming to terms with the fact that the trolls fucking erased her memories of Elsa having ice powers and that Elsa isolated herself to protect her (and not, you know, because she hated her or something)

Leftover guilt from holding a grudge against Elsa for most of her childhood for shutting her out, because NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL HER THAT IT WAS FOR HER OWN GOOD and she never knew why

Basically Anna and Elsa both need joint therapy or family counseling or something because holy shit their parents did NOT handle this situation properly AT ALL

(Also omitting Frozen 2 for Anna because I haven’t seen it and this list is also getting too long)

Moana

Surprisingly, Moana’s movie was relatively tame — in fact, because her tribe returned to voyaging and she is now exploring the seas/following her passion, these events were arguably beneficial to Moana’s mental health rather than detrimental. The only emotional baggage I can really imagine Moana having post-movie is leftover grief from her grandma dying and maybe the stress of having to put up with Maui’s shit

#shitpost #meta #disney characters #disney princess #long post #this has been in my drafts for literally a year so i may as well post it

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