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to put in as simply as i can. telling someone that you do not believe their experiences with themself, that science has yet to prove either way, saying that is inherently wrong ableist and that they don't actually know themselves, is not kind. no matter how you word it. people are allowed to take offense to that, and people have every right to not want to be around you after that.

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its soo funny like seriously do not be afraid to cut people off who are hurting you in your life because youre afraid to be alone bc like new people will just fall into your lap once they are gone. And true for smaller things too like blogs you follow. Dont be afraid to unfollow or block people who bother you bc like. Just not having your space cluttered up will make you natrually have more time and energy and like. Just looking in new areas bc you left the old one. Its seriously sooooo much easier and faster to meet new people if you arent clinging to people who are holding yu back.

its like super weird i genuinely expected to just be alone after leaving people or even just blocking a lot of blogs i used to like but you jsut. find new people. I mean idk my experience might not be universal maybe its something else im doing also but like. bro people keep appearing

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I hate being apart from you. It's sickening. Can't you understand that nothing matters more than you?

Please, don't ever go.

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YOU'RE GOING TO DIE, IT WON'T BE VERY INTERESTING!!!!!!

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i'm not the only one who thinks shots and such is like. yeah it's bleak but also like. really really really fucking hot i'm not alone in this right

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i do appreciate that nemlei is like "no don't view these characters just through the lens of mental illness and flatten their actions into just being caused by a personality disorder" because people would and do do that both in fiction and real life.

HOWEVER

they absolutely do have personality disorders

personality disorders are caused by circumstances and a world that fails you, not by being born evil or whatever

even when your thoughts/feelings/behaviors line up with [symptom] it is still doing a disservice to say that the cause of it is [personality disorder] rather than [real life trauma]

the way she wants people to view them by saying "don't shoehorn them into real life diagnoses" is already the way that I view personality disorders (having three myself)

she's just trying to avoid ppl being ableist about them in ways that pwpds can't avoid happening to themselves irl

i feel like it perpetuates the ableism to act like assigning them a pd or three they very definitely have would be diminishing the narrative or flattening their characters

cmon man. i just wanna say they have npd. i can be trusted with this. i've already found fifteen developmental traumas and identified how they would lead to various complex trauma disorders. i prommy i'm not flattening their characters or ignoring cause and effect of in universe events. in fact i am paying.... more attention to it......

so i just find it kind of annoying because the problem is people interpret personality disorders extremely ableistly, not that it would be wrong to say they have a pd

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a fundamental key aspect of examining literature is the author's intention, and everything we do with that intent: be it accepting it or rejecting it. it is among the most important tasks of the reader: when you do a critical analysis, especially so.

i am a very, very, very firm believer the "Word of God" is secondary to what is presented in the actual text. it is most important to examine what has been said or done in the text and it's implications directly, that is my personal belief as a reader. however, i believe that the author's intent is not something that should be ignored.

Nemlei is very clear, for example, that the idea of the siblings acting the way they are due to a neurodivergence or mental illness is not the right way to think. this is observable in the text.

Andrew and Ashley didn't become murderous incestious cannibals because they were born the right way or crazy or some stupid shit like that. they are the products of a society and world that has completely and absolutely failed them at every opportunity.

the coffin does not exist because they were naturally destined for it.

i've always thought, from the moment i played it, this is it. this is the moment Ashley Graves became a Tar Soul. i think it was the last chance Renee had to say "Holy shit, I'm a fucking terrible mother." and try to help her. and when Andrew, a child himself, fell asleep (not something he should blamed for) as Ashley tried to share her pain. the moment a Tar Soul hatched.

so that leads into the second half. about accepting or rejecting the author's intent.

the final room in Shots and Such is haunting. there's so much you can easily miss. the bathroom, Ashley's last safe space, being destroyed in a rampage by Andrew. the fucking table. the one time they had sex Andrew in his right mind enjoyed, Ashley only able to enjoy it as she was so drunk she could not be "herself" and breaking down afterwards. even small things like Andrew not taking out the garbage and Ashley preferring to let it affect their living space than help him out. everything in that small apartment from hell: everything must be viewed together as the whole, as the sum of all it's parts.

there is a clear intention of the author in those so easily missable scenes. the mutual love and hatred between them, with hatred greater than love. the dysfunction and normalization of violence into just another day.

Andrew having raped Ashley and probably not even processing it was rape is just another dime in the dozen incident in that little hellhole. hell, maybe that was the night he knocked up Ashley.

we can interpret this scene in different ways, even though i think the author's intention is pretty clear. Ashley could not consent. she lost all control, they had sex, and Andrew can't piece together what went wrong. the one night they actually "made love" which is clearly an opinion he and only he has.

... and you know, we have to accept author's might not have the same morality as us. the same opinions.

"If two people get super drunk, and have sex, who's at fault?" and some people might not have answers we like. an author might even write an opinion we vehemently disagree with from the bottom of our heart.

and it is our duty as readers to discern and interpret their works. i truly, sincerely believe this. i believe from the bottom of my heart the author's intention has become clear in shots and such.

"No one asks when she kicks you out for the night, or which stairs she fell down this time. It's all business as usual."

the normalization of both abuse and despair.

to the point even this becomes just another tidbit of that hell.

hate the idea that an abuse victim can become an abuser all you want. i think it is clear what it is Nemlei has tried to convey. hate it, reject it, love it, accept it, or ignore it. disagree or agree with me. i personally have read this and have arrived at my conclusion based on the text given to me, and analysis of the dialogue in this scene as well.

Nemlei is not writing for us. she makes that clear.

and it is up to us if we want to accept or reject that.

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Did you know that horses are still used for logging? Not just as a way to keep traditional handicrafts alive, but because horses are genuinely better at some jobs than machines?

Horses are much gentler on sensitive ecosystems, they're more flexible in rocky terrain, and they don't topple over on a hillside.

They can enter dense forests and drag out one specific tree without damaging the other trees and without compacting or eroding the soil.

They also run on hay instead of gas or electricity. Horses don't pollute the ecosystem with either oil leaks, gas stench, or noise.

In conclusion, draft horses are awesome c:

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(desperately organizing wires because if there's an unspecified Too Many Of Them then Bad Things Will Happen) haha i'm so delulu

(utterly convinced my partner has been replaced by an imposter) i'm being soooo delusional right now

(afraid to go outside because people are Looking At Me and There Are Cameras There and they will Report Me) lmaooo indulging in the delusions again ♡♡♡

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i do always feel like in kin memories like. i have done no wrong :) i am perfect :) i am a victim looking out for myself and everything was necessary :) i made a commitment to hurting people no more than necessary and i have stuck to it :)

so i am always inclined to see andrew graves and vox as perfect sweet boys who have done no wrong and get upset when ppl say they are pieces of shit (unless i am feeling dommy about it in which case i go haha yes). but like. i know they are bad. i know i know i know. if you see me posting about how they are perfect and have done nothing wrong im just indulging in my fantasies. ppl always act like acknowledging that they are victims of abuse is denial of their abuse but its not i do that separately pls dont conflate the two

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get your own brain! don't borrow nemlei's!

daily reminder that nemlei is not god and you can just have a problem with the way they write something. btw. thats allowed.

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new type of fandom nonsense where you say "they wouldn't fucking write that" and it's about the author and how they would never write something you wouldnt want them to write except they did and theyre not even a fictional character who you can be like "well my reading of them is different" they're a real life person whose actions you're erasing

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daily reminder that nemlei is not god and you can just have a problem with the way they write something. btw. thats allowed.

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welp, looks like it's time to block everyone in the tcoaal fandom

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I’ve been thinking on Andrew’s need to be normal and after reading Sunshine-Jesse’s latest essay I’ve come around to the idea that it’s truly not that important to him. Or rather, being normal in of itself is not that important to him, the attempts to do so are something he takes very seriously.

There’s a consistent method that Andrew uses to deal with his problems, and that’s disengaging, avoiding, denying, hiding away from it. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but taken to the extreme Andrew does it becomes a very big problem. As with most problems with the Graves, a lot of this can be traced back to Renee’s shitty parenting.

From his youngest memories, Andrew shows a predilection for lying and lying to withdraw himself. When his great Friend B talks to him about playing the Magic card game together, Andrew rather than open up in anyway lies about the reason he can’t play the game with him. He hides away and disengages rather than tell the truth and explain that his family doesn’t have the financial ability to support playing cards.

This is a continuous thread in the flashback as well, where when Ashley and Andrew deal with the Hag in their building his actions are to disengage and attempt to sweep any problems occurring under the rug. Andrew tries to make it so that if a problem occurred he feels no consequences and if he can manage it, make it so it “did not occur at all”.

When Ashley falls down and is covered in mud, Andrew goes to great lengths to hide this problem entirely. He does his best to make it so this is something his mom never even knows happened, when he could have just made up an appropriate lie and the situation would have resolved more favorably. But that requires a degree of being open that Andrew is near incapable of, not to mention allowing a problem to be brought to light rather than buried (burial hmm). It blows up in his face, which is something that happens to him several times through his life, from that incident in the flashback to him pulling away from Ashley when she was in the process of growing up, making them both tread a worse path.

So how does Normalcy fit in to this method that Andrew employs? Andrew sees “being normal” as being someone without problems. Someone who is normal is good, and by playing that part he doesn’t have to open himself up to anyone. (Interestingly, he never opens up to Ashley, but the fact that she is perceptive enough to see him in truth is something he very much loves. She even points out that others could see him too if he opened up, but he very much does not want that, would rather play a role and withdraw from that type of connection).

So to be normal in Andrew’s eyes is to remove himself from any danger to his inner self, and to remove any chance of problems occurring.

All of this also ties very heavily into Andy as well. Andy was not allowed to actually express himself, Andy was required to withdraw and only provide the appropriate assistance with Leyley. To grow past Andy for good, Andrew has to open up for real rather than keep pulling away.

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