#I can't explain it to you I am EXTREMELY emotionally attached to literally all of the dragons in this world literally all of them

[babisawyer]

I've been so excited about house of the dragon that I forgot that the dragons will in fact be dying in large numbers.

[corset]

Under read more for long ass vent/discussion about my system stuff featuring minor cameo from autism

You know I....have a lot of really complicated feelings about being a system. On one hand it's a huge unavoidable part of who I am. It's something that I have had since I was a child and that is literally fundamental to the way I and my personality developed...so it feels like. Important. Right. But on the other hand the negative experiences that come with it can be incredibly awful.

Just knowing I have it because of a bunch of terrible things that happened to me as a child is pretty bad by itself but it also being my brain's go-to defense mechanism against stress is annoying as fuck, especially when I am still surrounded by triggers for some of my most major traumas, can't really control how or when it manifests, and also live with one of my abusers.

Having family members or people who knew me in the past treat me like I am behaving incredibly weird or like a total stranger is really alienating and offputting when I am just trying to be myself, even if to them it seems that way. I feel like people are constantly looking past me for the person they actually want. Having "family members or people who knew me in the past" be almost unrecognizable to me or having no emotional attachment to them or the few memories I have left of them is also pretty fucked up. The most notable and oddly forceful example is when the guy (my mother's boyfriend at the time) who was essentially my childhood older brother slash father figure for a few years who I know I was really close to and emotionally connected with called my mother a couple of years ago and I ended up on the phone with him and he outright asked me why I was "talking/acting like that" and I was like... ??? Because this is...how I am? And he said "no it's not" and it was this whole. Extremely jarring experience. My own mother has admitted I have been on and off incredibly different throughout my life etc.

I think the worst part for me is the occasional grief/mourning I have to deal with over the fact that I just do not get to have a childhood, and it was basically stolen from me because of a combination of other people choosing to fuck up a child and bad luck. Seeing posts or people talking about like oh I associate x with my childhood or what is a movie/song/thing that was really formative to you in childhood and not being able to remember or answer or feel that the little bit of knowledge I have even Applies to me feels really uniquely terrible. I feel like a bunch of shattered glass on the floor that doesn't line up or make a picture anymore? Like I do have things I know I have attachments to that I also liked as a child or started liking as a child. It's why certain music is so deeply important to me, and why I am so attached to the earth/nature and sea life and anatomy/other sciences that I can not only remember but Feel I liked as a child and still do now. It's really all I have left. There is almost zero throughline between portions of my life and it's just so disorienting? It also makes me feel like I have lost and missed out on a huge chunk of my very finite life.

Honorable mention to the way my brain handles fictional characters and identity and how it makes me feel like I am not actually myself to other people because they don't really want to acknowledge how important a character is to my core identity for one reason or the other, and also the shame that can come with it because it can be extremely embarrassing for me.

Plus just having to explain any of the important intricacies to people who are not systems is kind of annoying. Like I would never be friends with a person who isn't understanding of it but like....insert that post about wishing people could just be normal about it because of how important it is to our lives and our literal existence here. Being a system and being autistic are literally the two most fundamental and unavoidable truths of my brain that touch every single part of my life and the way I interact with and understand the world and the amount of people who do not take it seriously or think it's "weird" or have these really rigid boundaries they think you need to fit into and that they're allowed to just dictate who you are on a whim or be an authority who gets to "teach/explain" how wrong you are about yourself TO YOU is absolutely crazy. Whatever.

[plightofthecentipede]

hey i have a question but first i want to make it clear that this is not judgmental or sarcastic i'm just genuinely curious. what is it about tylor swift that so many people are so deeply attached to her personal life? i know that it's stan culture and all but i feel like swifties have reached a new level of it and i'm like. genuinely asking. what is it about her that makes people get so emotionally invested in her personal life. again i really am just interested in your answer because i've never seen such a strong response to celebrities dating bigots ever

i might not even be the best person to explain it bc i think i'm actually a lot more removed from a parasocial relationship with her than a lot of swifties (and i'm definitely less invested than i used to be) but like that's just her whole brand yknow?

i can't speak for others but for me it comes down to being a certain age when i got into her music, when i was 12, 13, 14, and felt like she was a big sister telling me she knew how i felt. in hindsight it's weird and extremely unrealistic but i was a deeply lonely kid, and i was extremely media- and business-illiterate, i didn't understand that at the time. but i got to feel like i was growing up with her music and that feeling has always pushed me to lend a certain amount of grace to her. maybe too much.

i think she has always been in this crossover space of being both a very introspective songwriter (whether you like her music or not it's fine that's not the point, but understand that for some ppl it just hits) as well as a business branding genius (and that's not just her, it's also her parents and their team). so she tells her fans over and over and over and over again that we're "the longest relationship" she's ever had. and i can't blame younger ppl for getting really emotionally invested in that the same way i did.

stan culture in general is wack and i have removed myself too much from it to like, have anything new to say on it. before this situation with matty healy i have really never cared about her personal love life, i've always taken her music and recontextualized it to my life or my interests rather than caring so much about exactly what she meant and who she was saying stuff about. but anyway.

there are levels of standom and some ppl go really overboard with it but in general fans of her music tend to get drawn into really caring about her as a person. so to find out, after everything (after she made a whole damn film about how she was going to speak up politically, after literally promising us that she was against all this bigotry), that she's keeping company with someone so vile and hateful, it feels like a very personal betrayal for a lot of us. and it's not fair to say it shouldn't be personal when that's been her entire brand this whole time. like i think it would be really really disingenuous to get all up in arms about some guy hurting her feelings and then turn around when she's the one hurting ppl and scream "parasocial relationship" and "you don't even know her."

it's true, we don't know her. that is a fact and i've been in that boat for years. that doesn't change the fact that her entire business model is centered around making us feel like we know her. i don't say that to single her out as the only celebrity to do this (she's not) or to make her sound like she's all calculated and conniving just for being a smart businesswoman. but that parasocialism is a core tenet of her business and she wants the benefits of that - but doesn't want the consequences when she dates a guy who stands for everything she claims to be against. it calls into question whether she ever actually had our backs when she said she did.

this situation shouldn't be more about her than it's about the hurtful things matty healy has done. primarily this is a situation about him being a scumbag. however, bc taylor swift is one of the biggest pop stars in the world and bc of the fandom she has built, her choosing to entwine herself with him matters. this is the other side of making your entire career out of making strangers feel like they personally know you. not everyone has the privilege to completely ignore this just bc they love her music. her dating him so publicly encourages a lot of people to actively be more racist. we are already seeing the effects of this where swifties of color are getting bullied and discriminated against more than ever. it matters.

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Okay SO as a disney level happy ending lover like myself we’re all used to the idea that love is what prevails in these kinds of stories and oc wanted love but chose to seek the power/authority/freedom (I use freedom very very loosely for this point in history as well as being a woman) she never got to have. The rape obviously was the fast tipping point, as well as gyu not only getting married but then having to have sex with his wife, to flee to taehyun. Now I feel like she probably has developed a form of love for him (not the same childhood to adult lovers level like for gyu) but he has what she always held higher than just love by itself. I feel like her perfect marriage would have been if beomgyu could have married her before all the shit happened but that’s not always how life works as this story shows. Now irl I am a dirty filthy whore for both men but in this story I am rooting for one far more than the other in terms of what oc wants/is better in the long run (as well as the non rapist) HOWEVER when you take her life into account you can see the dilemma as this was way back in this era as well as she is extremely sheltered. You can see why she has thought about going back to him even though none of us irl would do that but simply from looking at her as a character in this you can appreciate the back and forth. I also see taehyuns perspective but I don’t think he fully grasps just how sheltered she was because her learning to love him regardless of still loving gyu or not is actually a huge thing for her because gyu was literally her entire life before, but that ties in with him being detached from love entirely. Imo if she’d go back to gyu her ass would get thrown into a nice dungeon or some shit because Beomgyu would be all “you still left me though 🙃” BUT I still stand by taehyun having some sort of grand gesture whether it be him telling her he loves her and he’s willing to take baby steps or saying she’s his queen or something that would be wild. But I feel like gyu is also going to do something off the rails and that would also be wild. Idk it’s all going to hit the fan and I’m excited to read it all. Your story is ART

I am so sorry this was so long I just love this story and you showing all the perspectives and it being different than the usual things on here 🥺

i'm a disney happy ending lover too. i never really read sad fics becasue i can dish it but i can't take it 😂

yeah oc's ideal version would've been being married to gyu but maybe what's best for her is to be with tyun. this next chapter fully fleshes out the pros and cons of being with tyun for oc and the reasons why she wants to stay with him as well as the reason why she wants to go back to beomgyu (and in chapter 8 she'll make her final decision 👀) but i'm happy that you already get why she's so conflicted. but while the contex of the story is super important to understand her motivations, there are still many relationships like hers and gyu's that happen in this day and age, and even worse, but the victim stays emotionally attached to the abuser. manipulation is a hell of a drug, and it transcends time periods

and yeah taehyun really should appreciate the strength it's taking her to get this far, and he kind of does but that's not his problem. (his problem will also be fully explained in chapter 8)

“you still left me though 🙃” 😂😂😂😂😂 i can just imagine him making the face he did in his birthday live when they members didn't come to wish him happy birthday

but yes both men have shit up their sleeves and things will go wild 😂