#I'm not gaslighting you I'm experimenting

[class1akids]

Some thoughts about Ch 419 - character agency and origin

I'm way behind, but wanted to add my 2c on the debate relating to the AFO "twist" and what it means for Tenko to have AFO at the core of his existence. It made me think once again of the Shouto-Shigaraki parallels .

I didn't take it quite as bad as some of the fandom, because:

we kind of already knew AFO was behind it, we just didn't know the full extent

unlike a lot of people, I didn't think that Tenko being saved by vestige magic hugs, sidestepping Tomura's adult personality and going hand in hand with child!Izuku to fight the big bad would have been a good conclusion.

I also don't think that Tenko not having any agency is necessarily a bad thing. You see, my favourite character, Shouto is a lot like Tenko. His birth, his quirk, the loss of his family, every trauma that shaped him as a child leads back to Endeavor. He's born to be his weapon to use as he wishes.

His lack of agency doesn't make him a boring character. In fact, I find it fascinating how the story shows us Shouto clawing back his agency, identity inch by painful inch, until he's able to stand firm and say - so I can AFFIRM the reason for being born. So let's look at saving Shouto, because I do think it's kind of a blueprint not only for saving Tenko/Tomura, but to Tenko/Tomura rising to save others.

And if we remember Shouto's journey - yes, it starts with a moment of a hero reaching out to him, reconnecting him to his child self who was told that he can choose who he wants to be, he can be a hero.

Notice though how being reconnected to his child self, is not an insta-save. Baby!Shouto doesn't just take over UA!Shoto and erase his personality or past mistakes. Shouto himself has to do the work. He has to face his own shitty choices, like giving the cold shoulder to Inasa or not seeing his mom for a decade and try to reconcile who he is NOW after the abuse, grooming and being driven by negative feelings. Taking ownerships of his mistakes (even if the source is Endeavor) is one of the ways to emancipation.

But it's also not a straight path. Shouto experiences being faced with his childhood dream as a nerf (just like Tomura did now lose to AFO) because of the trauma and doubts he carries. He momentarily loses his will to fight.

For people who never had agency in their lives like Shoto or Tomura, the simple truth that you get to make choices is hard to internalize and the constant doubt whether it's a choice you make by yourself or are you just walking down the path your "creator" set out for you remains.

And how could it not? Shouto wants to be a hero and wants to be not like his father who is the No 1 hero now. It's a contradiction, no? And it takes Shouto 200+ chapters to come up with an answer to reconcile the tension - he wants to be a reassuring hero - something Endeavor never was. Having this goal in his mind, he's able to accept more and more of the tools his father gave him - his quirk, Endeavor's techniques, even gear that looks like his father's - because as long as he's rooted in his own will, his own goal, he gets to keep his own identity, he gets to affirm his reason.

This is why I want not some idealized child Tenko to vanquish AFO. I think it's much more powerful if the person who makes a return is Tomura (who is also Tenko, but I use Tomura as a shorthand for his adult self, the person who he has become).

And while it's undeniable that AFO is deeply at the core of Tenko's origin (just like Endeavor is for Shouto), I also think he's gaslighting Tomura when he says Tomura never made a choice. And I'm talking about the League here specifically.

The bonds Tomura created with Touya, Toga, Spinner, Compress, Twice, Magne, etc - are fully choices he made. AFO let it happen - but the League (a place for outcasts to be accepted) are Tomura's choices.

Just as for Shoto the friends he made are instrumental in him earning his agency, being able to affirm his existence and not crumble from tragedy, the LoV is the key for Tomura to start to claw back his own.

And that's why I think it's narratively desirable for them to be part of Tomura's endgame (also to mirror Deku who would be fully an OFA/All Might creation if not for the friends and allies he made for himself and who all come to his aid in the end).

The League is also the place where the Tenko/Tomura faultlines can be reconciled into a whole. Tenko's desire to be heroic (to play with the outcasts) and Tomura's desire to stand with his allies/friends (the villains). So it boils down into a moment of wanting to be the Hero of the Villains. That's Tomura affirming himself right there. This is not AFO's path for him, but it's him reintegrating everything he has become, his truths and understanding of the world, his bonds that shaped him into that childhood dream. (It's like Shouto's "reassuring hero" moment).

And I think Tomura losing himself to the trauma, PTSD, etc. momentarily is ok too. He lost the rage that drove him forward (like Shouto in the final of the Sport Festival) and is untethered right now. He will need to find a positive emotion to become his drive to take him forward.

But his power will surface with the right trigger, just like Shouto showing up at the Stain fight wielding his newly liberated fire to help Deku was the real pay-off for their Sport Festival fight. (But only after Shouto digged deep inside himself and went to face his mother, face the existence he was given and the hurt it caused to his family with the actual reality.).

I think Tomura will also need a "deep dive" to compare his perception of the world to the current reality. Is society as passive and worthless as his perception of it? The heroes all fighting together, the civilians pitching in feels like there is a change compared to the passive hero society he remembers. But I think the real trigger should be / will be the LoV coming in. Because is it true that AFO made him choose them?

The LoV despite their bonds being real and deep couldn't save each other because they were all spiralling deep in their own traumas. But now Toga and Touya also had their own moments of reconnecting with their child self and having that child's original desire fulfilled (for Tenko - a hero came, for Touya - his family watched him, for Toga - someone accepted her as normal) but of course it's not a magic solution.

Because that moment would have saved the child they were, but not enough for their current selves. They will also have to make their own choices going forward. I think all of them can find the reason to face AFO now - Toga still wants to protect the things she likes, Touya maybe able to move beyond his father's reasons and look for his own, but not from a revenge perspective, Spinner is loyal, Compress I think will also come.

How, you ask? Well, Kurogiri is still black with bits of white. He still has in him the conditioning to protect Tomura, but also infused with Shirakumo's genuine care. I think just like Oboro helped the heroes to round up everyone, Kurogiri will round up Tomura's allies.

And once they are there, Tomura will rise up to them and will be the hero of the villains, joining forces with Deku and everyone to finally finish off AFO (and maybe save his friends). Because even with the little agency he had over his life, those choices were his alone, and he will be able to root his identity in that.

[jinxed-sinner]

Please tell me I'm not the only one who really fucking likes the idea of Alastor and Vox being exes. I have a whole idea for this too loosely based on my own experience being asexual and demiromantic.

Like I like to think their relationship was purely romantic when it happened, or at least Vox viewed it that way. Alastor accepted that, but he didn't really think it felt any different from a normal friendship like the one he has with Rosie (he probably eventually started viewing their relationship as "romantic" too, figuring romantic was just a label and didn't actually mean much). Alastor let Vox get touchy, and Vox at least pretended to be respectful of Alastor's boundaries.

Eventually Vox started wanting more from the relationship, which made Alastor uncomfortable, and he broke it off, leading to their falling out. Vox was obsessed with him before this, but it was something Alastor was willing to look past because he could hold his own in a fight with another Overlord if the need came. Then they fought, and they were nearly perfectly matched in a physical confrontation with Vox being just slightly stronger, and Alastor realized that Vox was more dangerous than he thought, because I genuinely think Vox manipulated Alastor at some point. They're both master manipulators but I think Alastor's manipulation is closer to lying by omission (basically, omitting things to hide the truth) while Vox's manipulation is more obvious; he uses hypnosis and mass mind control which probably means he can manipulate people more easily and more quickly. It wasn't until after Alastor broke off their relationship that he realized that.

Alastor's strength comes from his cunning and what amounts to ambushing people to attack them, if the retellings of his backstory in the pilot and Dad Beat Dad are anything to go off of; Vox's strength is in his charisma and what amounts to cult leader levels of manipulation and gaslighting. Alastor uses the tactics of a serial killer; Vox uses the tactics of a cult leader. Everyone knows Alastor is a serial killer, so everyone's weary of him. Not everyone realizes what Vox is doing; not everyone's weary of Vox, if anyone is weary of Vox (except maybe Angel. Everyone else seems to find him annoying at worst). People are more weary of serial killers than cult leaders.

Went off on a tangent there but I doubt Alastor realized how dangerous Vox actually is until their falling out. I genuinely think they were in a romantic relationship at some point that was incredibly toxic and Alastor didn't realize how bad it was until they broke up because he wasn't (and still isn't) used to romantic relationships, which Vox realized and used to his advantage. I think he discussed his relationship with Vox with Rosie before leaving for 7 years, and she's the one who brought it to his attention that the relationship was incredibly toxic (and yes Rosie was definitely horrified).

I actually think this would explain the kind of dirt Alastor has on Vox in Stayed Gone too, because Vox is trying to tear down Alastor by basically saying "he's old and he's a coward, why would you listen to him?" while Alastor is tearing down Vox by saying his power comes from manipulation and he'd be powerless if he didn't manipulate people into following him, or if he didn't have a team behind him (although let's be real, if he didn't have people following him but still had Val and Velvette he'd still be powerless because the only reason he's so powerful is because he has a massive audience that he only has because of mind control. Take away his ability to use mind control and he's almost completely powerless, at least socially).

[crimeronan]

if i ever properly write the AU luz-vee-hunter-camila meeting AND keep everything i'm experimenting with re: vee and hunter's history, it's just gonna go down like.....

vee, who scented creepy rotting necromantic bullshit on hunter like six years ago: yeah so. guys. this dude is 100% not a witch. i don't know what he is but you have got to stop gaslighting me about him being a witch. That Is Not A Witch

luz, who has buried creepy rotting necromantic bullshit with hunter's face and would rather die than admit it: HAHA WHAT A WEIRD THING TO SAY. ONE OF THE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HUNTER IS HOW HE'S DEFINITELY A NORMAL WITCH WHO WAS BORN IN A SUPER NORMAL WAY. LET'S NOT BE INSANE

camila, who has way bigger fish to fry than creepy rotting necromantic bullshit: well! i think what's most important here is that we're all individually committed to doing Absolutely No Harm to one another!! whatsoever!! in any way!! at all!! ever!! and we are all going to Not! Traumatize! My! Daughter(s)!!

hunter, who is currently unaware of his creepy rotting necromantic bullshit status, but is nonetheless having no trouble following the conversation: yeah honestly you guys can call me whatever you want. i don't really think i can..... like..... defend myself.

[outeremissary]

I was really sleepy when I was answering asks yesterday and I almost forgot to check if you were doing the problematic oc ask too!

Balth is your oc I’m most familiar with! But if they’ve already been asked tell me about whatever critter is infecting your brain most rn 👀💖

Ahh, I appreciate the ask!! Somehow, no one did ask about him!! At any rate, I feel like this blog is full of Balthazar's sympathetic moments and not his Chaotic Fucking Evil Moments, happy to finally correct that <3

Lies constantly

Vengeful

Selfish

Past history of gold digging

Former con artist

Endorsement of experiments on animals

Enjoys watching other people suffer

Loves making people worse

Willing to sell out friends when they cease to be useful

Told a suicidal man to do a flip on the way down

Made fun of a suicidal man's family's deaths

Invades woman's memories to see her at her most vulnerable, mocks her for it

In general just willing to kick anyone when they're down

Doesn't like Regongar's puns

Profited from infant sacrifice

Murdered his own cult

Lied about having a cult

Problematic trans rep?

Accepted demonic gifts multiple times

Supported two different Lamashtu cults

Really does unconditionally forgive Tristian

Sincerely thinks Tristian did nothing wrong

(except cause problems for him but see two points above)

Funded demonic library

Misappropriation of public funds for personal projects

Harboring smugglers

Has been called the worst and most evil person in the Stolen Lands multiple times

Had a cult dedicated to him being The Worst (until he murdered them, see above)

Recruits enemies terrorizing area to work for him

Leading on poor Sharel

Frequently manipulates others into killing on his behalf

Takes credit for the work of others

Refuses to help with camp chores

Troll alliance

Hates animals

Obnoxious PDA

Abuses aasimar heritage to take advantage of others' trust

The public executions

The secret executions

Comes from working class family, often uses his success to close opportunities for others instead of opening them

Jaethal minister

Belittles Regongar's mental health problems

Ghosts Regongar instead of breaking up with him

Mocks Linzi's writing constantly

Enchantment specialist. Mind control is the way <3

Endorsement of experiments on nonconsenting wererats

Identity theft

Identity theft coverup

Asshole southern elitist, frequently belittles local culture as backwards

Propaganda

Lying to the public about a plague

Gaslighting rioters into fighting each other

24 year old bullying a 17 year old... Lander Lebeda is literally a minor

Plus that's just high key pathetic

The murders

The assassinations

Doesn't like dessert :(

Funding foreign dissidents

Endorsement of troll torture

Bad at communicating emotional needs

Using other people as shields in combat

Will throw anyone under the bus for anything

Really only heals Tristian in combat

Supports filicide for dark ritual purposes

His friendship with Jaethal in general

Problematic bi rep?

Attempted to recreate Bloom

Everything that happened during the Divorce Era

There's probably still a warrant out for him in Absalom

Due to [redacted]

Defacing a priceless historic tome (only known copy)

Anyone can die if it's for Tristian's sake

Sells out allies when they stop being convenient

Surtova supporter

Covering up Lander's death

Lander Undeath Incident

Torture is fine

I'm not even sure he seriously thinks torture works he's just horrible

Bread and circuses babyyyyyy

Mean to Nok-Nok

Literally kicked a dog

And there's an incomplete list of Balthazar Crimes! I'm sure I'm missing so, so much but honestly he's problematic more than he's not so. You know.

[prompt]

[wearecrowley]

good omens crack 2 of ∞

[notdelusionalatall]

[aro-culture-is]

Cupioro culture is gaslighting yourself with the fact that you can’t possibly be aro since you really want/are fine with a romantic relationship even if you know those romantic attractions don’t live inside you and it’s confusing as heck

for anyone who may not know:

wanting/being fine with a romantic relationship does not disqualify you from being aromantic! aromanticism is - generally - about attraction and the lack thereof to specific individuals.

[aceofspades-11b]

Can I have a blue pen?

Me looking up half chewing the only one pen I brought

Fellow batchmate didn't even respond just looked away in disappointment

[formerlyashkatom]

I am currently going through the process of getting registered for disability support services in my country and was just approved, and am waiting for my first meeting to determine what kind of supports I need.

by the time you get to this point, you have already been assessed as having a permanent impairment that substantially reduces your functional capacity. because my disability is psychosocial, I am now gloomily and anxiously poking at my introductory material trying to figure out how to explain that yes, there is nothing physically wrong with me, but lo and behold I am still unable to do things, that’s why I’m here.

the support that you get is split up with one of the categories being Capacity Building and I just am so tired of trying to explain to people that you can’t capacity-build your way out of having a psychosocial disability. it may fluctuate, there may be some small improvements that can be made, but at the end of the day, bottom line, I cannot look after myself. a disability is a disability is a disability and the functional impacts don’t just vanish because there’s ‘no good reason’ you can’t do something. but it’s there in the language our government uses, it’s there in the disability activism posts that show up in my For You feed, it’s there in the attitudes of experienced disability workers I talk to as part of my job, and it’s sure as hell there in the confusion and silences of my family and my peers when I talk about getting this support.

I get that accepting that people can’t do things is scary because one day it may be you, but by god, the alternative of people suffering invisibly because they should just be able to do things is so much more invisibly cruel.

[regallibellbright]

Honestly I think I'd hate Arthur Cantabella less if they'd simply removed the whole "Yeah no this is a government-condoned psychological experiment" aspect.

TESTING WHAT?! No, genuinely, what? Using the contaminated groundwater/weirdass Silver Fainting Allergy and/or the flower ink as a drug? Because uh, if that's the case, then I'm pretty sure using them both in conjunction contaminates your results.

Is it something about mob mentality? In-groups and out-groups with the elaborate tech crew made of convicted witches and victims maintaining the whole illusion? In that case, I think the fact that you're drugging and gaslighting the entire experiment group is also contaminating the results.

Also the whole fantasy setting is probably a confounding variable for Something.

Okay sure parents could consent to taking part in this experiment for their children, but uh, I'm pretty sure some of these kids were born AFTER the experiment began. Given the aforementioned Large Amounts of Drugging From Multiple Origins going on here, I have some concerns!

No seriously. Please. PL vs PW writers. Give me the grant proposal Arthur Cantabella submitted to get anyone to fund this project. I know it's Bill fucking Hawks, but even he's got limits! I don't see how he benefits from half this shit even if he wants to use the other half (I assume the drugs.) Why is he paying for the rest? There's a reason why Clive is established as being a lone schemer with obscene amounts of money who's keeping all his scientists in the dark and/or coerced to keep building, and it's so that we don't have anyone there questioning why he's building an elaborate fake town populated by actors in addition to his Underground Vengeance Mecha!

The fact that you somehow managed to get this cleared as a psychological experiment establishes that you know the field of psychology exists. Why in the name of all that is holy did you think building an elaborate fake fantasy town with an elaborate magic system which you make real through the power of drugging people, knocking the ENTIRE TOWN out every time a spell is used, changing things around them to simulate "magic" using the most ridiculous Renn Faire stage crew ever, and manipulating the clocks so no one's aware time is passing, with a system that prosecutes witches and burns them so that they can join the Renn Faire Stage Crew along with their victims, and positioning yourself as the all-powerful Storyteller who writes their reality into being would be a better solution than therapy?

Honestly I'd respect "I had a god complex, lol" more. Especially for that last one, but like. In general. Descole's out there living his worst life, he KNOWS he's an asshole supervillain agent of chaos, and I respect this because he has clearly CHOSEN to be Like This. You do you, man. Ditto for Don Paolo but like, less effectively.

This is not how any of this works.

Okay, setting... ALL OF THAT aside, you're doing this because your and your best friend's young daughters are understandably incredibly traumatized because they wanted to ring the bell early and the Weirdass Groundwater-Induced "Allergy" That Makes You Faint When You Hear Silver Ringing caused them and everyone else to pass out, and as everyone in the square below was having a fire festival, this caused a massive tragic conflagration. Okay. Yeah, this is bad. (I have. MANY questions about how this bell was made, excavated, and mounted in the square without anyone ever ringing it and realizing something had happened, but we're going to gloss over those for now, it's Professor Layton and I would otherwise be all over this incredible bullshit. It's great up until it asks us to think THIS was ever a remotely reasonable idea.) One of your daughters is all but catatonic because a story you told her earlier has convinced her she either is or will be taken by The Great Witch Bezella. Sure. (You suck.) Why the FUCK is your solution based on the other one unpersoning herself to her best friend and doing all the work to make the magic real? Yeah, sure, she agreed to it. SHE'S LIKE EIGHT TO TEN. HER BEST FRIEND THINKS SHE'S AN AWFUL MONSTER AND WON'T REACT OTHERWISE. OF COURSE Eve's gonna help, but that doesn't mean you should put the entire burden on her! She is ALSO horribly traumatized to the point of repressing what happened. Get her help too. The fact that the game seems to put their actions on remotely even footing when one of them has been treated like shit since she was TEN and one of them was an adult who PURPOSEFULLY AND INTENTIONALLY set up a system that would put her in this shitty situation means that yeah, no, they fundamentally are not. Of course her decisionmaking is misguided and terrible! She's a twenty-year-old who's been horribly mistreated for more than half her life! HER DAD JUST COMMITTED SUICIDE OUT OF GUILT FOR HIS ACTIONS IN SETTING UP THIS SYSTEM.

No one's going to hold them responsible for the deaths. This was a sequence of events so thoroughly unforeseeable that literally no one could have predicted it. It won't even reflect poorly on you and Belduke, because you two somehow managed to find the bell, excavate it, and mount it without ever ringing it and realizing it knocked you out and you all had an environmentally-induced silver "allergy" and at that point this goes into "acts of a cruel and malicious Writer-God" territory.

Also it was totally predictable that this elaborate system of misogyny would not actually help Espella in the long term as she instead repressed her memories and further internalized the whole witches = evil thing so that when those memories inevitably came back she would be in EVEN WORSE shape, this is why you should have gotten an actual psychologist who could have told you this whole thing was a terrible plan to write your grant.

No like does he drug all his requests to whoever he reports to (it has to be directly to the person signing checks) in the mind-control ink? This is my only explanation here.

Why. In God's name why. Did you not. Simply. DESTROY THE FUCKING BELL TOWER. You have a crane here! What possessed ANYONE to think just covering it up with Vantablack and gaslighting so people couldn't see it was a reasonable solution to the Trauma Tower? (There may be an explanation for this, it has been ten years, but this man's problem solving has been established to be so poor I award him no points.)

And if you were going to do this, why didn't you tell Newton? Or was it just that the lightning strike burning up the Vantablack was itself a reminder to him that you can't repress the past away and he was suddenly aware of how overwhelmingly POINTLESS all this suffering was? (Edit: I think it was this. No but seriously you could’ve just taken a fucking wrecking ball to that thing while you were rebuilding the town.)

Seriously why the fuck did Newton Belduke go along with letting you use his traumatized daughter like this? What the hell, man. What an asshole.

Also. Your problem was that you had two severely traumatized little girls (even if you only acknowledged one of them was traumatized.) Your solution was... to traumatize a shitload more young girls?

TO THE POINT WHERE AT LEAST ONE OF THEM ATTEMPTED SUICIDE?!

And then your best friend actually committed suicide?!

Like. Seriously. If these are the actions of a single, seriously traumatized person, the fact that you are making Literally The Worst And Most Inexplicable Decisions Ever Which Make The Problem Worse For Literally Everyone Involved is more... well, conceivable. I buy a traumatized eighteen-year-old with an obscene amount of money building an elaborate fake London that is allegedly London ten years in the future, hiring actors to populate it, kidnapping scientists, making them build an Underground Vengeance Mecha to destroy the city, and then kidnapping the Prime Minister who is the source of that trauma and hooking the engine of the mecha up to his heart. And then roping in the one guy who could conceivably solve the whole problem and stop him and Clive would let it. It's a bad idea on EVERY conceivable level, don't get me wrong, on an UNPRECEDENTEDLY terrible scale, but it's a bad idea in which it is very clear no one at any point has asked the person what the fuck they think they're doing here, what they are trying to accomplish, and why they are doing so with this objectively absurd method. Because they have not let anyone in close enough to key them to The Full Absurd Terribleness. It's either this or become Batman.

But Arthur? Apparently his decisions have been vetted by OTHER PEOPLE, and this just boggles my mind. I refuse to believe this. I refuse to believe NO ONE went "have we considered this is like eight hundred terrible ideas bundled up into The Worst Idea Ever?" And I refuse to believe he's anything but a massive asshole when his plan had so many awful consequences for literally everyone BUT himself!

Like, don't get me wrong. There are SO MANY examples of unethical experimentation on human subjects in the real world, psychological and otherwise. But most of them are not this incredibly convoluted, implicitly expensive, and we all generally recognize these days that they were bad.

Also, none of them were enacted as an elaborate setup to (incompetently) handle the trauma of the experimenter's daughter after he told her if she was bad a scary evil witch would possess her and then she and her friend accidentally enacted a tragedy whose scale and fundamental absurdity rival the Boston Molasses Flood, but without corporate greed. There were solutions to this that were so much easier, less convoluted, less EXPENSIVE, and less harmful to... well, everyone else involved, except Arthur Cantabella.

[kakitysax]

Thank you for making that post about goncharov and being consistent with tagging stuff. Some of us folks have enough trouble telling what is and isn't real without getting gaslit by a whole website. It's a lot more enjoyable when the context is readily available so I really appreciate that. /srs

You're so welcome!!! Thank you for telling me this!!! /gen

I had some "friends" in middle school whose idea of a "joke" was making shit up, then telling it to people, then laughing when they believed it. They often used me for this because I'm autistic gullible and trusting.

I never understood what the funny part of it was supposed to be. Like. Of course I'm going to believe what you're saying, you're my friend. And then later they'd be disappointed when they tried to make "jokes" and it didn't work, or angry when I questioned them about something that was true. You are actively teaching me not to trust you and now you're mad that I don't trust you?

It's also so disorienting when I'm first in that place between trusting someone and learning not to trust someone. Because I'm autistic I have a very strong sense of truth and justice and wanting to know what's real, so when I start to question if one thing is real, I start to question if everything is real. I even start to dissociate and shit.

Eventually what I realized is that that reaction is the joke for them. They like seeing me upset, confused, and out-of-the-loop. They like it when I have to beg them for the truth. They like knowing that they can lie to me over and over again and that there will always be that wide-eyed little part of me that initially believes them.

They like being mean.

The first few minutes I knew about the Goncharov joke, I ran a quick google search and started to dissociate and panic a little bit as I received conflicting information. I couldn't find anything online by a quick google that said it wasn't real. I ran back and checked the tag, and found one user (@elytrians) who dutifully broke it down and told the truth. Immediately I understood that it was a joke, and I thought it was the funniest shit in the world! I also love making shit up so I hopped onboard and started writing fake discourse.

But it's not funny if you're not keeping it grounded in the truth. Then it's just mean.

New users are flooding in from Twitter right now, and our attitude about this joke is going to set a precedent for what Tumblr is like and how we use it. I came here when the site was believed dead because I knew it was a safe space for neurodivergent people. I'm going to be so, so pissed if we lose that because people would rather gaslight autistic people and people with trauma or psychosis.

So yeah. Gonch responsibly.

[gas-stxtion]

//okay so i'm gonna try and articulate some jantonio thoughts. specifically my thoughts on how fucked up and tragic it is to have any romance between those two *before* the reveal of tony working with the agency.

because like... yeah i imagine tony is generally very loving and protective of those he's with romantically. that's still true. but he also has the potential to be *incredibly* manipulative and toxic in the right circumstances, and while he's working with the agency, that's exactly what he has to do to keep himself alive.

in some of the many, many AUs i play around with on my own, as well as a couple of the verses on this blog, tony does ultimately defy the order to kill jack when he receives it, but that's... not the case in every AU. because even if he cares about jack, at heart tony is a pretty self-serving person, and even if he *wasn't*, he knows very well that if *he* doesn't kill jack, someone else will. at the very least, he can make sure jack doesn't suffer more than he has to.

but there's no way that would go over *well* and it would absolutely destroy their relationship, because. well it's pretty hard to come back from trying to kill your partner, regardless of the motivations. like i don't think it's *impossible* in the right circumstances, with enough time and work put in to repair the broken trust, but i think it'd be fun to explore a scenario where that doesn't happen. where tony tries to kill jack after a while of them dating, and then they both have to live with the consequences and fallout because tony is still alive and around.

also because i've had the thought in mind for a couple of weeks now of like... tony being on that manipulation grind and telling jack shit like. "i'm sorry, sweetheart, i wouldn't do this if i didn't have to." "you brought this on yourself, but i'll make sure it doesn't hurt." "if you'd just kept your head down and stayed out of it, you'd be okay." etc. etc.

[strozzaprete]

my aunt offered to pay for my therapy (with an actual therapist!!!) starting from september good god this is such a big fucking deal for me i'm so relieved...

[starsonmarsy]

i have a very bad habit of saying extremely concerning things in a nonchalant/casual/funny way and it gives everyone around me whiplash

[jvzebel-x]

bosses will literally lie to your face about labor laws while telling you that you didn't show up for work the day that you got hurt.

&work injury attorneys are about a ~15min discussion away from taking care of all of it for you, with payment assessed in percentage after you win.

never let anyone bully you out of your fucking rights.

[letmeliedown]

someone told me today their relative might be getting top surgery with mclean and i am so fucking glad i was able to say what happened to me & that no one should ever go to the mclean clinic for top surgery