#being ostracized and bullied and isolated is just so so SO horrible

[runawaycarouselhorse]

Iris was so ostracized and shunned by all her classmates for being so different (she had never studied from text books before, she splashed around in the fountain, she picked fruit from the trees, etc.), that she stopped eating until her dorm mother skewered berries for her to eat, saving her, in Iris' own words.

[egg-emperor]

It's true . In my experience most callout posts are made by bullies who want to utterly anhilate their victims and render them pariahs, modern day lepers that nobody wants to associate with. If the victim makes money via online commissions they are especially fucked since their livelihood is essentially destroyed by rumors/lies. After all nobody wants to commission from anyone who [insert nasty allegation here]

The victim becomes an acceptable target and thus the behaviour sometimes escalates into real world consequences such as doxxing the victim and contacting the victims school/employer to get them fired or expelled.

Yeah it's true a massive amount of callout style posts are disingenuous and deliberately malicious instead of intending to be helpful. Like 99%. Leaving out important info, twisting things to suit their narrative, making stuff up, or airing things that didn't need to be everyone's public business. So often it's really over not knowing how to privately communicate, or wanting it to go public to turn everyone else against them too and an excuse to bash publicly. This is most obvious when they keep building up more reasons to convince everyone to side with them, going from accusations of something petty and mild to serious crimes. Very slimy

There's also many cases where they'll pretend it's really a care and concern for people they might interact with and their actions when really it's all personal. They have a grudge and hate that person and will do anything to get others to hate and attack, ostracize, shame, and isolate them too. Sometimes over petty stuff like wanting everyone to dismiss everything they have to say or provide in a fandom or something, they think they can immediately "win" by saying "don't listen to them, they're *insert buzzword being used in a situation so far removed from its original context here* !!!!"

Which is so crazy and so scary that it's so normalized. It disgusts me that people will make such serious accusations against people all for selfish, disingenuous, malicious reasons where they don't even really apply. The way people are so quick to easily believe everything they're told even without an ounce of solid proof is just as concerning too. The former have a secret agenda to cause that person pain instead of helping others by "warning" about them, and the latter are either so blindly naive or also have a bias that makes them want to believe there's a "valid" reason to hate them. And they all like how they can feel superior and virtue signal

It's upsetting to see the targeted people's lives get ruined and horrific abuse they can face too. People will gleefully stoop to levels of putting them in harm's way to the point of physical danger irl and destroying their livelihood. As a believer of human rights, I don't think anyone should be treated some of the ways I've seen people treat people in hate campaigns, even if they were guilty. Including people that have hurt me directly and are guilty of something awful because of it, they're still human and have rights. I don't believe human rights should ever be revoked, that would set a harmful precedent

So I don't like seeing how people will act like it's a good thing in situations like callouts and act like no wrong can be done against someone, especially when they're innocent. But even if they're not, it discourages growth. Attacking and isolating someone doesn't teach or help them understand if they did something wrong. People can't violently force people to bend to their will, it won't be genuine. They have to give a chance to acknowledge, grow, and change if it really is necessary and beneficial. In fact, giving them a horrible time may just strengthen their current position because people were assholes or put them in genuine danger

I wish callout posts didn't turn into common things people make when they want personal fights and grudges to have an audience that joins them in attacking them, broadcast sensitive private things to everyone to humiliate, and act morally superior to invalidate their existence and virtue signal to others. It's watered down serious subjects and crimes and taken away all possible reliability or usefulness. It so often destroys way more than it helps, especially when so many innocent people are attacked too. They're rarely tools compared to how often they're weapons now and people need to be more careful and considerate before putting blind good faith into them

[chocottang]

Two sides of the same coin: Goldami analysis

Ok, I’m kinda using the term “analysis” very loosely here, as it’s more of an AU based off of my personal interpretation of Cami and Golden. Anyway, in order to even make this “analysis” out of a ship with two interactions (in which Golden isn’t even himself) I’m going to analyze the characters separately, and then speculate about their relationship based off of that.

If my analysis of the characters are accurate, we can find that Golden and Cami have some things in common, and some things in which they’re polar opposites. We can also see that their relationship could either develop into something very healing, or end in something quite horrible. But let's start from the beginning.

can u guys beilieve this is their only frame together. and it isnt even golden. im losing my mind

Golden Analysis

Let’s start with Golden. He was separated from his mom at a young age and was forced to work since childhood by his grandpa. He wasn’t even allowed to play with his toys, which were seemingly thrown away.

Moreover, his grandpa isn’t even a good guardian, not only does he exploit him, but he’s also not very present in Golden’s life, leaving him to be taken care of by Jeffrey. And when he does show up, he’s far from supportive. The only conversation we have between them is when he guilt trips Golden to try and get him to spend less time with his friends, and then leaves him eating alone.

And to add to all this, Golden was never allowed to play with other kids. We don’t know if it was by command of his grandpa or purely Jeffrey’s idea, but the point is that he has been completely isolated from normal life throughout his formative years.

So, putting all of this together, Golden was robbed of a normal childhood: He has spent all of his life away from kids his age, busy working and not even allowed to play. The only people he could get company from, his family, weren’t even there for him. His only companions were the people he worked with, his babysitter that stuck strictly to his grandpa’s rules, and fans (once he became a singer). He was never able to have a normal relationship with anyone, and the only person who seemed to care for him, his mother, was ripped away from him. It doesn’t surprise me that he believed he had never felt true love until he met the animatronics, since the closest people to him were a man that uses him for money and another man that is just working for him.

This caused him to be extremely lonely, and so desperate for real love, for someone to see him and appreciate him for himself, not for what he can provide. He was so desperate to change his life, to escape, but was completely stuck. Where would he go? What would he do? Who would he call for help?

Thus, if he couldn’t escape physically, the only thing he could do is dissociate to try and cope with his life. Toss all negative feelings as far away as possible, getting rid of the rest of his emotions in the process. Having, as he said himself, a “cold heart.”

Cami Analysis

Let’s move on to Cami. When she was little, she was ostracized by her peers and bullied relentlessly. Being so small, her instinct was to isolate herself from the rest of the kids so as not to get hurt again, leading to more ostracization and bullying for being the "weird loner kid." She was really lonely.

She already seemed like a quiet, reserved kid that didn’t show her feelings, this may even be the reason why she was picked on in the first place, so I believe she had a natural tendency to repress herself. In the face of bullying, her fear, shame, anger and sadness got too overwhelming for her, so she bottled it all up. This way, they wouldn’t see her cry, and she wouldn’t feel so bad, tiny and helpless. I believe that's why she has such a cold personality, she got so used to dissociating her feelings that now she can bareley show them.

This backfired, though, once she made friends: T-trap and Eak. They’re consistently kind, showing her their love, but she still feels lonely even around them, because she can’t relate to them as a result of her repression. She can’t relate to anyone that doesn’t hide her feelings like her, and she doesn’t know anyone like that. It's like she's completely alone in the world. She’s so caught up in thinking that no one likes her because of her cold personality that it took eavesdropping Eak and T-trap’s conversation for her to finally realize how much they appreciate her, going as far as joining Owynn just to protect her.

She sounds genuinely dumbfounded by the realization. But she’s so deep inside her repression that she can’t even process that, and her shadow quickly takes over to maintain the status quo in which Cami can function: one without big emotions, where she’s completely alone.

The basis of the relationship

We can already see some common ground between the two, and that is their response to trauma: to dissociate or repress their feelings. And, of course, their overwhelming feeling of loneliness. This is where the two of them can bond, both a stepping stone for the development of their relationship and what it’s largely based on.

But, how and when can the two of them interact in the first place? Their only canon interaction is in the camp arc, and Golden wasn’t even himself in there. And, well, controlling someone’s mind isn’t exactly a good place to start a relationship, is it?

The thing is, since their loneliness is what sets off their interest in each other, there are limited times in which an interaction between them would bloom into a relationship. Because if Golden is on good terms with the animatronics, he’s not lonely anymore, so why would he interact with a girl he has nothing in common with? Now, we could say that maybe Golden becomes interested in Cami because he sees his past self in her, lonely and dissociated, but Cami wouldn't be interested in Golden if he’s not like her. She already has two great friends that try to help her, why would this one be different? Sure, he was like her once, but not anymore. She wants —needs— someone like her now, not a past, functionally dead, person.

So, we need them to interact when Golden either doesn’t know or isn’t on good terms with the animatronics. When his heart is either still cold or wanting to freeze itself again out of pain. Meaning: before he met the animatronics, after their season 1 fight / the camp arc, or in z3r0 where he loses his memories of them. I will go with z3r0 because it allows for more flexibility. We will assume Cami does have her memories.

We know that Cami has been keeping an eye on the animatronics for quite some time. I imagine she understands, at least on a surface level, how their friendship works, in order to hijack it for whatever it is Owynn’s purpose.

I imagine she also researched them individually for that same reason. Therefore, she understands that Golden is somewhat dependent on them, as she can see how his attitude changed from before he knew them to after the fact.

This is her first peak of interest towards Golden. She can see herself in the lost glance he had as a child. Nevertheless, what she truly wants to do is redeem her first failure: control Golden again, like in the camp arc. She knows how vulnerable he is towards negative energy when he’s not with the animatronics. However, she can’t do it, because Golden is not plagued with negative energy like when he and the band fought, rather, he’s lacking any energy at all. He’s not upset, he’s just not quite there. And, surprisingly, when Cami approaches Golden, he’s confused yet stoked about it. This is the first time, that he remembers, he has talked to someone normally. It’s like with Chica all over again. And so, Cami decides that if she can’t control him right now, and he’s so willing to interact with her, she can instead subtly influence him to do what they want by becoming his friends, replacing the animatronics with the villains.

With this new plan, Cami and Golden get to spend a lot more time together, and realize how much they have in common. Although Cami isn’t talkative, Golden is a conversationalist, and manages to help her open up at least a little, revealing their similarities. The mere fact that the other one exists, someone who is a weird repressed mess like them, is comforting. They’re not alone anymore. Golden is excited about having friends in general, but he’s also especially interested in Cami because of their common ground. He's happy to be his true, unfiltered self with someone and finally opening up. Cami is just glad she’s not as lonely as she thought.

Something they very much don’t have in common is their relationship with music. Golden loves music, although it does make him suffer a little with his career being so time-consuming, it’s still his biggest passion. On the other hand, Cami doesn’t seem to care about music outside of using it as a weapon for Owynn’s plans. How did she learn the violin in the first place? Perhaps she was forced to learn by her family, possibly with good intentions. But, ultimately, she doesn’t like music, because it reminds her of how different she is from everyone else.

Since this is taken from Cami’s song about loneliness, I interpret it as meaning that she doesn’t feel anything evoked by music, from the need to dance to the emotions it causes, she’s completely immune to it. This makes her feel even more isolated, since everyone else seems to understand or feel something in music that she doesn’t.

Still, for the villains, music is nothing more than a weapon. Because you can express emotions with music, and make someone else feel them, it’s a powerful tool for passing negative energy. This is why they want Golden, and why they wanted him in the camp arc: he’s already a musician with a big audience, so if they can get him to express a lot of negative energy to a lot of people, they can control all of them.

The problem is that Golden is not expressing any negative energy in his music, since it’s largely controlled by his firm. In an attempt to fix this, Cami advises him that he should use his music to talk about how he feels. Golden agrees and starts writing, singing and playing the guitar for himself again, but is also excited to show Cami what he’s actually capable of. In the process, he rediscovers his love for music and starts addressing and processing some of his trauma. When he tries to show Cami, though, she confesses she doesn’t actually like music. This only makes Golden more eager, and promises Cami that he’ll find a way to make a song she can connect to, even if she’s the only person that likes it.

Whether it goes sweet or sour

Now that Golden has been writing about his trauma, he’s made progress in healing. He realized that his coping mechanism became maladaptive, making him colder and striping him of most of his emotions. He realized Cami is the same, and that’s why they bonded in the first place, they’re not similar per se, they just deal with their trauma in similar ways. He wants to stop this, to feel again, even if it hurts, and wants Cami to do the same. She doesn’t like the idea. She’s too scared to try and feel anything again, even if it’s good, she doesn’t want to get hurt.

In a way, this is because they have different relationships with their trauma. Golden has conflicting feelings: his memories of his mother both comfort him, because someone truly loved him once, and hurt him, because she’s no longer with him. The same goes with his relationship with his grandpa. He hurts him, and is generally shitty, but Golden still loves him and is grateful for what he has given him. He wants to make amends, work through the negative and find the positive. But Cami’s memories of her bullying only hurt her. There’s no contradiction or positive twist. So, she believes nothing positive can come from revisiting her feelings surrounding it. She wants to keep running away, but Golden won’t leave her alone, because he knows what she’s going through and wants her to heal with him. But Cami only sees this as Golden abandoning her, leaving her to be lonely again. She also feels guilty, both for using Golden and for ruining Owynn’s plans again by indirectly helping Golden start healing.

With this, their relationship is stuck. If Cami decides to listen to Golden (and her friends), they can slowly but surely heal together and confide in each other. This doesn’t address the other circumstances, though, of Cami controlling Golden back in the camp and getting close to him in order to use him for the villains again. I do believe that, as soon as Cami starts healing, she will lose interest in evil schemes. Now that she has committed herself so much to Golden, working for someone who wants to use him would be nonsensical. We don’t know exactly why Cami works for Owynn, but from the way Eak and T-trap talk about saving Cami, it would seem like he’s manipulating her in some way. Perhaps he uses some aspect of her trauma against her, like her loneliness. So, as she heals, he loses his grip on her. She would then have to come clean about it all to Golden, and although it would be difficult for the two of them, I think Golden would ultimately understand that she was being manipulated.

If Cami doesn’t listen to Golden, though, they would become stagnant. They’ll be unable to heal because it could mean the end of their relationship. They’ll be stuck as they are and never grow. In the worst case scenario, things can get ugly.

The thing is, Cami can be a controlling person. We can infer this from her powers: she quite literally controls or otherwise influences other people. It’s not something she seems to actively do outside of working for Owynn, though. The issue is, Golden is part of the villain plan. So, if we combine her controlling tendencies, the desperation of not wanting to lose the only person she has ever related to, and the need to redeem herself (or perhaps using the plan as an excuse), Cami could go back to her old plan and take control of Golden, like in the camp.

First, of course, she needs Golden to have negative energy, which he already does due to the stress and pain of having an argument with her. Then, she uses her powers and takes over his mind. This is already horrifying by itself, completely taking away someone’s agency over their own body for selfish purposes, but it gets worse when we consider it’s Golden.

He’s used to being controlled and he hates it, it’s one of the biggest sources of misery in his life. Having someone he confided in, loved and trusted betray him by doing the exact thing they know pains him so much would be absolutely traumatizing. And to add insult to injury, Golden would learn that, for all that time, Cami had ulterior motives to be with him, trying to use him, his art and his influence for her plans. Once he regained his memories he would also realize that she was the one who controlled him back in the camp. For him, this means that she has always been looking forward to controlling him again. All of this would also destroy him, since one of the things he was desperate for was someone who loved him without wanting anything in exchange.

After getting control back, probably thanks to Freed, it would take Golden a lot of time to trust people again, since it would seem to him that anything he says could be used against him and that no one is truly genuine.

I don’t believe Cami's evil. Once she gets out of her panic headspace, she would realize the amount of harm she’s done to someone she loves and would feel extremely guilty. I don’t think Golden would forgive her, and they wouldn’t become friends again. But I do believe the experience would make Cami realize how fucked up Owynn’s plan is, how much it has costed her, and she would start distancing herself from him, eventually leaving the villains and healing with the help of Eak and T-trap.

To wrap it up

Golden and Cami’s relationship is based on their similarities regarding dissociation and loneliness. They can comfort and understand each other in ways no one else can. Where they have differences, they complement and enrich each other’s perspective.

The problem is that basing most of your relationship on your shared misery and similar coping mechanisms isn’t healthy. As soon as Golden wants to start healing, Cami feels abandoned and her controlling tendencies start showing. Unless Cami decides on time that she wants to unlearn her maladaptive responses too, their relationship becomes stagnant or outright toxic. If she does, they can be really good for each other. But this can only happen if she also distances herself from the villains and comes clean about what happened at the camp. Because if Golden were to learn about all of this from somewhere else, he wouldn’t trust Cami again.

At the end of the day, what they really need is therapy. But they could be good for each other if they do things right.

[bluebunnyears-08]

Fucking Crying Over Here About Prime Again (Yes I have An Obsession With This Show, So What?)

Did anyone else notice a sort a cycle with Sonic and Nine, or what hopeless situation Nine is trapped in? I mean I didn't at first but thinking about it now it's becoming kinda obvious.

Let me start with the pattern part first. When Sonic and Nine had that brief moment of trust and friendship Sonic was sucked into the shard away from Nine, leaving the kit alone, confused, and most likely worried and no doubt hurt. When Sonic and Nine end up in the Grim and Sonic chooses to go and help the rebels, leaving Nine alone again, leaving him with the horrible feeling of rejection and loneliness one more. And finally when Sonic goes to look for Nine he unintentionally leaves Nine once again at the mercy of the council.

Now you might be thinking, so what are you saying? Well, did anyone else pick up on the fact that it wasn't just a moment of events, but it was the fact that Sonic leaves Nine in an even WORSE psychological state the more he unintentionally gets pushed away (either by the literally universe, or even Nine himself) and repeatably abandons Nine?

In the first moment of unintentional pain, Sonic gets sucked into the shard, Nine being concerned, confused, and no doubt conflicted, being left alone to ponder in his own worries and thoughts, even after he escapes the council. (Another thing is how he abandoned the rebels and Rusty to find a way to find Sonic, mostly due to his nihilistic and loner mindset, but a small sliver of it might've been due to Sonic disappearing without a teace. The only person who was EVER kind to him)

The second moment leaves Nine even worse, Sonic gently shutting down the Grim DID NOT take away the pain and probable gut punch Nine felt. Nine noticably doesn't yell or snap at Sonic (his noticable changes I'll mention in another post). In fact he seems to bitterly try to swallow that rejection. He pushed himself away from Sonic in that moment, obviously trying to protect himself from the pain, letting him go back and help the rebels, not forcing Sonic to stay (even thought he could've easily done so, he didn't, which again, I'll talk about his noticable character change in another post). Sonic leaves and Nine is left with his own thoughts, to gulp down on that emotional pain on his own.

The last time is when Sonic unintentionally leaves Nine to be captured. From the scenes we see, Nine isn't having the time of his life. He's tased relentlessly, having to dealt with the fact that the person he saw as his only friend rejected being together with him, AND left him when he needed his help on top of that. Not to mention listening to plans of murder.

Imagine: You're an eight year-old child who's been bullied and ostracized by everyone around you, being abused and neglected for something you never asked for, then after YEARS of pain, isolation, and loneliness, you find someone who tells you of another life you could had, someone who shows nothing but selfless concern and care for you, and that same person gets taken right in front of you, leaving you confused, hurt and alone again for what was stated to be WEEKS. Then you build a space ship so you can find him, finding a home for the both of you, when you finally see them again though they reject your idea of a perfect world. In your head: they reject you. You let them go, deeply hurt, but come back to help, only to be captured by tyrannical dictators, abandoned again by the only friend you had. You now have to deal with the undeniable fact of them rejecting you, being stuck with cruel but idiotic dictators who talk about KILLING someone you thought cared for you, and even when you manage to pursue them against it, they talk about draining them, about essentially torturing them to death. ALL OF THAT combined with the emotional trauma of a year long abuse, living in a crap sack world of cruelty and misery, being alone, hated, AND continuously blaming and hating yourself for years, AND the future mental toll of the revelation that it took someone from ANOTHER WORLD TO MAKE YOU FEEL LOVED AND SAFE, BUT IT WAS ONLY BECAUSE THEY SEE YOU AS SOMEONE ELSE, SOMEONE YOU COULD NEVER BE.

It REALLY makes wonder how Nine hasn't fucking SNAPPED.

But something tells me season two is going to get a lot worse for Nine. This series is about Sonic going through redemption to save the world, and Shadows eventual realization that communication takes using your words than using your fists, AND questions just how far a super genius child's mental state and psyche can last when our through isolation, horror, and depression.

But hold on, because I'm about to make this so much worse.

Which brings me to my second point of this post.

I can't remember who rn (mainly because I'm tired as fuck and writing this at 6 in the morning) but someone mentioned something that got me thinking; Nine's entire goal, his entire dream, his SUFFERING is beginning to seem all for nothing.

If the theory that Sonic collects the shards and boom worlds fixed is true, what did Nine suffer for? What did Nine fight for? What did Nine keep going for? All of that pain, that isolation, that psychological horror he experienced and will probably continue to experience, all of his efforts would be for nothing. His goals will never be fulfilled, Nine will never be able to truly win. He'll never be happy.

Either:

He'd just fade from existence and merely become another trait in someone he desperately wants the life of and refuses to be known as.

He'd get rejected by Sonic and would have to suffer this revelation. HARD.

He'd find some way to force Sonic to stay, but in a world where the hedgehog can never be truly happy in (Sonic values freedom above anything else, not to mention his considering of his friends as his home and his insatiable thirst for adventure). And given how Nine seems to want BOTH of them to be happy in the Grim (given his uses of 'we' and 'our'), it would still be for nothing, not to mention it most likely won't make Nine happy either from the sheer guilt or self hatred he'd be in.

He could prevent Sonic from getting sucked into any more shards or in the ShatteredSpace, but seeing how Shadow found a way to escape the void, it wouldn't last very long.

He could find a way to join Sonic in his world, but either reality would collapse and all of them will die or he'd have to live a life being seen as Tails's doppelganger and not a true person, not to mention to undeniable jealously and emotional torment he'd face seeing the fox's and hedgehogs unbreakable friendship.

He could betray Sonic and take over the multiverse, but he'd be hated even more than ever, seen as a monster, not to mention it would completely ignore and trample upon his goals of wanting to be happy. He'd still be fucking miserable.

He could join the Council, but same problem as the one above, only this time he's still trapped in New Yolk with a bunch of cruel dictators.

He could sacrifice himself, but he might never find peace in even that, knowing he's just a mere doppel in Sonic's eyes, knowing his efforts were futile, still rendering his actions to nothing.

No matter what you think of, Nine is still going to be miserable, dead, or reduced to a possible fate worse than death. Nine can't be happy. He can't ever win.

(Which makes my constant tag of #NineDeservesToWinNoMatterWhat pointless too, but I'm going to continue to stand by this. He deserves to win, he deserves happiness more than ANYONE.)

But it's truly depressing that Nine is a person that nobody, not even Sonic, can save. In fact, while Sonic can help and give Nine the unconditional love and support Nine definitely needs, hes inadvertently making Nine's mentality worse not just by abandonment, but by his views of Nine as a doppelganger of his best friend and not his own person, which would undoubtedly take a huge chunk of Nine's psyche, his inability to accept Nine (both as this being a part of Tails, and also due to Nine being a Tails in his eyes, again he still sees Tails), his rejection of Nine's Haven, and the WORST PART OF ALL: Giving a hope that Nine can never grasp.

Sonic gave him a hope of palm trees and beaches. A world of joy and love. A world with Chillidogs and the two of them together. Forever.

But Nine can't ever grasp it, he can only claw and scrape the edges of it, he can only stare at it and make useless prayers for it to come to life. For once, Sonic's hope, his kindness, his friendship, but these normally good things only made things even more painful, even more hopeless, to the person who needs it the most.

And that's fucking traumatizing to think about.

[orderrup]

we fucked up when we started teaching children that bullying is an individual behavior and not a pattern of ostracism used to exert social control. this is why patterns of gossip and exclusion can be just as damaging to kids psyches as getting hit or called slurs. its why even though bullying has “gotten better” in recent years, it’s still ubiquitous.

yes it is horrible and traumatic to be on the receiving end of verbal and physical abuse, which is what bullying is usually painted as. but it’s also horrible and traumatic to witness that happening and to have the fear of that abuse shape your personality. you don’t ever have to be told to your face “don’t wear that, that’s weird” or “you could do it if you weren’t so lazy!” if you witness others being shamed or bullied for doing it.

bullying is a tool that is used to shape behaviors through the fear of ostracism and othering. it’s about teaching conformity above all else. adults are no better about this than children are. and “anti-bullying” education doesn’t really address the social pressures and isolation faced by children and teens in any meaningful way. partly because the caregivers who are meant to be protecting kids are often complicit in bullying themselves!

if a teacher or parent ever warned you not to do something because it would result in bullying, or put you on a restrictive diet, or straightened your hair, or tried to teach you to mask your autism— they were your first bully, under the guise of protection. if you watched another kid— a friend or relative or a neighbor go through that— you were being shown, implicitly, what is acceptable or and what is not.

bullies are not usually inherently evil people. most don’t think through the ways they’re harming people. the axe forgets, but the tree does not. the answer is complicated, but it has to start with acknowledging the knock-on effects of enforcing conformity.

we have to teach kids (and their parents tbh) the difference between a prolonged pattern of harassment and emotional terror, and a child having a meltdown, or getting violent in defense of themselves. when we understand bullying as a way to enforce social norms and control, and not just a question of “who started it” or “keep your hands to yourself” and “if you don’t have anything nice to say, be quiet”, all of the victim-blaming falls to the side.

[chatonarya]

"I believe it." — Why Gnosis Is Actually A Tragic Character

Original post on reddit.

(Disclaimer: unmarked spoilers for Break The Ice, Gnosis' operator profile, and a hefty amount of speculation and general nerding out over writing and literary analysis.)

Break The Ice is almost over and the lore discussion has largely died down, but there's one thing I'd like to talk about before Crimson Solitaire consumes us all! Maybe it will cast a contentious character in a new light, but this is mostly my personal interpretation.

We all know how heartwrenching the story of Arknights can be. But if I may, I feel that this section of Break The Ice doesn't get nearly enough credit for just how tragic it is and how deeply it would scar a person. But also, it wasn't the focus of the story, so I understand why it might have been just accepted at face value. 

Boy Enciodes: Do you have to go? Boy Gnosis: Yeah, my parents have already decided. There's no room for us in Kjerag anymore. Boy Enciodes: I still don't believe it was your parents who did it, and it's definitely got nothing to do with you. Boy Gnosis: I believe it, though. Boy Enciodes: What do you mean? Boy Gnosis: I don't know if my parents really did it, and I also don't know... if I was an accomplice somehow. Boy Enciodes: Even if you were, I'd forgive you. No one looks up to my father more than you. I know that. Boy Gnosis: Enciodes, remember our dream? Boy Enciodes: Of course I remember. The two of us will turn Kjerag into the most powerful country in the world. But you're leaving... Boy Gnosis: I'll be back. Boy Enciodes: Really? Boy Gnosis: Yeah. My parents are thinking of moving to Victoria, and I'll go to school there. This is a good opportunity. I'll study all the advanced stuff there, and once I am done, I'll come back and help you. Boy Enciodes: Heh... You jerk. In that case, I'll let you in on this idea that I have. I haven't told anyone about this yet. Boy Gnosis: What is it? Boy Enciodes: I'm going to leave Kjerag once both Enya and Ensia have grown up. Like you, I'll study lots of things and come back. Boy Gnosis: You're the future clan leader... Can you really leave Kjerag that long? Boy Enciodes: I'll come find you when that happens.

— BI-6, Diversion, part 1

The Edelweisses have been close to the Silverashes for generations with their children being jointly raised, and Olafur and Elizabeth were likely a second pair of parents for Gnosis. Yet not only did he lose them, already traumatic in itself, but he and his family were blamed and hated for it (and because the affair was ruled an accident, there wasn't a trial for even a chance to prove their innocence), and ostracized to the point where they were compelled to leave Kjerag. 

This is a tremendous upheaval for an adult—forced to leave an ancestral home for parts frightening and unknown, cut off from their community and everything they've ever known, especially in a place as isolated as Kjerag—let alone a child. Worse, consider witnessing the pain your closest and best friend had to be experiencing at losing his parents... and then other people believing you would make the decision to inflict that pain upon him. For how long was he forced to endure the gossip, the whispers, and the shunning from people who would never listen to the truth and whose minds couldn't be swayed...

...to the point where Gnosis himself believed it? The mind of a child is very impressionable, and susceptible to bullying. What a horrible thing to believe your own parents would do to their friends and yours. Think about how persistent and cruel people would have to be to convince someone into thinking they were an accomplice to something they didn't do, and how psychologically damaging that would be. 

Through no fault or action of his own, Gnosis had everything taken away from him as a child: his home, his innocence, his friend, with the only thing left to hold onto being their dream, and a promise. 

Think about how that would shape a person. Enciodes says during the flashback that Gnosis never used to sneer at people, but can you blame him? The only way to survive that kind of abuse would be to harden one's heart. Being hated by people for so long, it's only natural to begin to hate them back, especially if led to believe that you're inherently bad and evil. How would that twist a person and fill them with loathing, for themselves and for others?

Full of resentment, Gnosis practically jumps at the opportunity during BTI to, for once, be just as bad as people believe he is by becoming the "traitor again" to the Silverashes; even Degenbrecher comments she's never seen Gnosis so emotional as at the ceremony, "not that [he was] acting." He throws himself willingly into the role of villain with or without Enciodes' approval, because that's what he always is and always will be. 

Even after all those years and a more mature adult mind, able to know rationally that the Edelweisses were innocent, the scars are still there, the list of charges still branded in his mind. Gnosis still believes Kjerag has no place for him, so he spurns it in turn and states he doesn't care. Why should he care how others see him when he can't change what they think anyway? He is still hated for something he had no part in, the blame still imprinted upon him, a belief that he can't get rid of. No matter what he does, Gnosis is an outcast, the "son of a sinner". Think about how messed up a person would have to be mentally to flippantly refer to having a "list of charges". 

And the only one, pure and steadfast, who always believed in him and was willing to forgive him regardless, was Enciodes. Is it any wonder that for Gnosis, Enciodes is the sole thing he cares about other than his research? As far as we know, Enciodes is literally the only person who ever stood by him. (And even then, there's a flicker of doubt when he says, "Would you like to finish me, the traitor, and make this farce real?" as if he fears that even Enciodes will one day turn his back on him as well.)

And this is actually one thing that makes him contrast with Enciodes and makes Enciodes so incredible: by his own profile, he never gave into despair. Although, ultimately, his actions led to the breaking up of their family, which Enya is still bitter about and Ensia and Matterhorn want to find a way to undo, he never crumbled even though he was forced to grow up very fast to raise his sisters and become the head of the clan. He never had a choice; he could have grown resentful too; but he stayed strong. (It's possible even that the Browntails and the Paleroches were counting on him breaking under the pressure, given how crippled the Silverash clan would be without their leader and their closest ally.)

But Gnosis did not. He gave in. He despaired. He accepted what they wanted the truth to be. He dedicated himself to research because research is logical and there are no betrayals to be found in inanimate objects and formulas. People seek solace in their favorite things when they're under stress, and that was all he had until Enciodes met up with him again. He's apathetic about life and it's easy to see why.

And this is what makes his actions so remarkable. Despite all of this, he still founded Karlan Trade Co. with Enciodes. He still keeps his promise, still believes in their shared dream, though be it simply because Enciodes still does, it's not very clear and I can only speculate. But ultimately, despite Kjerag itself hating him, Gnosis still wants it to be better. "I'm not your pawn, and definitely not your underling," he tells Enciodes, so Gnosis is there collaborating because he wants to be. On some level, Kjerag is still his home. He still loves it, even if it's only the one he remembers from before, or the one it might be where people aren't effectively exiled for crimes they didn't commit. 

I think this is the reasoning behind his image song, "Heal The World." At first blush, it's very sappy and almost unsuited to such a cold character, but looking deeper, I think it's meant to reveal a hidden side of him. The lines "can you please save me from the end / the end's calling fire raging deep within /  Please don't leave", "the reason I fall", "here I am, just standing on the edge", "I want to see the system falling down", "the silence fills with screams", "through your eyes we'll find an endless future", "I'll continue forward"; these lines all pertain to his past and the unshakable faith that Enciodes has in him, and the future Enciodes offered him.

And this is what makes him tragic. Even though he'll never be accepted, he still works for the greater good and wants to change things for the better even if his methods might be questionable, and he'll spare no feelings in his quest because nobody will understand anyway. The end justifies the means, and he's already steeped in darkness anyway, so what's a few more crimes for a good cause? 

What's even more, all of this can be inferred or extrapolated from the event story and Gnosis' file without being directly stated or even a single monologue. Isn't that remarkable and subtle writing? 

As a final note, thanks for reading this ramble, and this isn't meant to be apologism for Gnosis being a cold and callous person; I'm very aware he's a jerk and I'm not trying to say he's not. (Because I know people are gonna say, "cool backstory, still an asshole." I have my own opinions on his most controversial act in the story, but that's not the point of this post.) This is just appreciating his writing, and why he's become one of my favorite characters.

TL;DR: Gnosis went through a truckload of trauma and it broke him, but he's still trying to do good things in bad ways and it's sad.

[erigold13261]

Among the NSR cast, who had the best/worst childhood?

Best childhood probably goes to Zuke and West. They ended up losing their dad pretty early but they still had each other and their mom.

DJSS, Mama, Papa, and Mayday also had pretty good childhoods. May lost both her parents but was too young to remember but her grandmother was there to love and protect her. Mama and DJ had good childhoods with supportive parents but them being half human (half being an estimate, they might be more or less but not entirely human) made them victims of bullying and ostracization. And Papa's life was also good except for asshole bullies attacking him for being different at times.

People with okay-ish childhoods would be Yinu, Kliff, Remi, and Tila. Yinu having her dad die but also having to basically work as a child (even if she is happy to play piano, it's still a lot to ask for a kid). Remi having Eve with him really helped keep his childhood normal and nice. He had support and help when he needed it. Tila had a decent childhood with not much going on before she came out as a lesbian. She was able to leave her family before anything turned bad. I don't have anything for Kliff's childhood, but I know it was at least decent.

Less okay childhoods would include Dodo, Sofa, and Eve. Dodo having a pretty ableist family that tried to force him to speak but at least they did let him learn sign language, though they made him feel like shit for it. Sofa's family kept making them feel like shit for their weight and trying to force diets and overall just made Sofa have a very unhealthy relationship with food and low self esteem. Eve just hated herself for a long time. Thinking she's the reason her parents divorced along with the bullying she got for her skin really messed her up.

Bad childhoods would be the extended 1010 (sorta) and Tatiana. Depending on which 1010 you ask you will get a different answer. Rin believes it had a perfectly fine childhood, as does Carna and Maragold. Eloni, Zimelu, and Haym would say their childhoods sucked but weren't the worst. Dew and Purl-hew would say their childhoods were horrible. They were all victims of Martha's abuse to a certain degree, but they react and remember things differently.

Tatiana on the other hand was forced to act like a boy and ridiculed anytime she tried to present femininely. She and her father got into many fights, a lot of them being physical, and she lost her mother when she was a teen. Not to mention the fighting and bullying at school that she had to deal with. But she was able to find friends that later became the Goolings. She would personally say her childhood was fine but if she talked about what went down in her house the listener would tell her it was not fine.

And finally, the worst childhood probably has to go to Neon J. He found his brother's dead body and ended up accidentally killing his best friends. He was full of self hatred and anger, with a verbally and emotionally abusive home life while school was so bad he had to drop out from the kids' harassment and bigotry. Not to mention his mind was very messed up from substance abuse that would later turn into full blown addiction. He tries his best to not talk about his childhood and has cut all contact with his family. The end parts of his childhood (so late teens/early adulthood) were very lonely and isolating.

[xaracosmia]

ꕥ — WELCOME TO CATA COSMIA, MIZUKI AKIYAMA. 🌕

ꕥ  — OOC INFORMATION;

name / alias: willow age: 22 pronouns: they/she ooc contact: @worldterminus on twitter other characters in xc: asa mitaka, lauriam (marluxia), izaya orihara, charles eyler

ꕥ  — IC INFORMATION;

name: Mizuki Akiyama age: 17 pronouns: She/Her series: Project Sekai canon point: up to date with the EN server’s events app triggers: transphobia, bullying, peer abuse

personality: Mizuki Akiyama is nothing but cute – a personable, extroverted highschooler with a high social standing among their peers. She’s popular and beloved both for her personality and for her works as an animator under 25-ji, and are just as carefree as she presents herself to be. In the very least… that’s what she’d want you to believe.

In reality, Mizuki hides behind a near-impenetrable mask crafted carefully from years of abuse and trauma, bullying and ostracization from her peers for the way she expresses herself and for her gender identity. This horrible treatment extended not only from those who she didn’t know well but even from one person she had put her trust heavily in; someone who cut her out of their life after refusing to see Mizuki for her true self.

Though she has since found individuals to confide in - misfits like herself, who she considers dear to her to this day - Mizuki still finds herself avoidant of school, deigning to live a more isolated lifestyle where she can be herself and live her life the way she is comfortable without the potential of negative pushback from peers. She skips school so frequently that it’s become normal for their classmates to place bets on whether or not she’ll arrive to class on any given day, and avoid getting close to anyone out of fear of being hurt once more by trusting the wrong person.

Though she may be plagued by negativity and trauma, Mizuki is truly full of personality. She’s mature, yet she tends to tease others near-relentlessly if she finds their reactions amusing. She hasa gigantic soft spot for things she finds cute and her interests lie in fashion design, clothing modification, video editing, and art. She’s slowly, yet surely, making her way up in life, coming to trust her friends and trying her hardest to believe that not everyone is going to abandon her; and though it’s difficult, 25-ji, Nightcord de. is helping her bit by bit.

something your muse struggles with: mizuki struggles to be open with others, and often puts others before herself, disregarding her own wellbeing. your muse’s greatest strength: knowing just the right thing to say to someone in many situations. she’s versatile, and has a face for everything.

history / background:

Mizuki’s past is something she refuses  to talk about – or even acknowledge, for the most part.

From a young age, she was ostracized by her peers and treated harshly for dressing outside of the “norm”; always choosing to be cute and girlish despite not being born as a girl. This rampant mistreatment and blatant transphobia from her classmates made her hide within herself, developing an outward mask and teaching herself to live in society without regard to the feelings of others. However, it still stuck with her.

She hid on the rooftop during her younger years in school, choosing to hide from her problems instead of confront them head-on. It’s on this rooftop they met Rui Kamishiro – another child who had been ostracized. Through the bond they developed over time, Rui eventually became her closest and, at the time, only friend.

As they entered high school, she began to present as her own true self, disregarding the mistreatment of her peers during middle school. Though it still remained in the back of her mind, she saw high school as a new start, and began to truly live as “Mizuki Akiyama”. Despite this, however, she still skipped classes, becoming labeled as a delinquent by many; but that was fine with her, as long as she could find herself without the pain of betrayal.

powers / abilities:  n / a

inherent abilities:

video editing and animation skills.

great with computers! and social media. (they know all the recent social media drama.)

great at sewing & handiwork. has an interest in upcycling clothing and modifying western clothing designs. known to have sewn a bunch of costumes used in-game!

items / weapons:

cellphone & UNTITLED: Her cellphone contains a file of an “Untitled” song. When the “Untitled” track is played, Mizuki is able to access a special pocket universe known as the “Empty Sekai”. This realm is separate from reality, and a manifestation of the creator’s - who, in the case of this Sekai in particular, is Mafuyu Asahina - true feelings.

a dress form & sewing supplies

a ribbon given to her by her older sister

starting ability: n / a starting item: ribbon

extra: canonically trans! i love her!

discord id: id.smile passcode: [frothing at the mouth] i love mizuki akiyama she's so neat [is normal]

[autisticslp]

So I’ve seen several posts going around about why you shouldn’t bully “weird” kids to try to “make them normal” or whatever and I wanted to add on to that. If a kid is doing something “weird” as in genuinely makes other people uncomfortable, someone needs to actually have a direct, nonjudgmental conversation about it with the kid. Because, news flash, neurodivergent kids might not pick up on why they’re being bullied, especially because a lot of bullying tends to be more subtle isolation tactics. Additionally, the neurodivergent kids may accidentally be the bully and not realize it! That was me growing up. I wish someone had sat me down and very clearly outlined what I was doing that hurt other people. Instead I was just ostracized.

If a kid is being bullied because they have no sense of personal space, talk to them about it! Talk about how different cultures and different people have different understandings of personal space, and that’s okay. Teach them about setting their own boundaries and respecting the boundaries of others.

If they’re interested in a topic that makes people uncomfortable (content that can be scary, disturbing, or triggering), try to problem-solve with them about how they can engage in that interest without causing harm.

If they have a crush on someone and are inadvertently being a stalker, help them figure out how they can express their feelings in a respectiful way. Adults especially seem to think that kids can just magically pick this stuff up which is so unfair, especially when media often gives kids horrible examples (the number of discussions I’ve had with teens about how the “romantic” actions in TV and movies are actually stalking and shouldn’t be imitated is *a lot*).

And because I have to say this, nobody should be shaming kids for anything, even if what they’re doing is legitimately harmful. Kids do well if they can. If a kid is struggling, adults need to be there to support and collaborate, not to shame or force compliance.

[aperfecttimeforscreaming]

10 reasons why a poorly adjusted adult Dib is a Valid headcanon

1. Dib is/was a neglected child

Dib doesn’t have a parent that he can lean on and go talk to for advice, his father is frequently out of the picture and doesn’t give a shit about the thing that Dib cares about. Dib is actively encouraged by his neglectful father to give up on it, actually. I believe this would make Dibs stubborn streak really bitter and spiteful. Most people reading this are LGBTQ+, I assume I don’t need to explain how a fucked up an isolated upbringing, or being unable to be yourself around a parent, hurts you in the long run. 

2. Dib is bullied for the things he is passionate about, and being bullied heavily colours your perception of other people 

The world of Invader Zim is not kind, Dib is frequently harassed by his classmates/superiors/family for his outbursts/lectures/overall investigator shtick. 

Now you might say “but, Screaming, wouldn’t Dib learn to tone it down as he got older?” and YEAH. Probably! But does that mean that he would just forgive all the people that made his life horrible before that point? Or who socially ostracized him for the things he’d done in the past? No. No one is under any  obligation to forgive anyone who hurt them, and I think Dib wouldn’t even try to forgive someone he saw as intellectually inferior 

3. Dib is a selfish rich kid

Dib is selfish. He wants to be the protector of earth- but he doesn’t do it for earths sake. He’s clearly doing it as a cry for attention/ a reason to eventually be vindicated for being spit on by his own kind.  I don’t think he would have genuine empathy for other people. If he did have it, it’d have to be something he had to work really hard at. However, I don’t see Dib putting much effort into understanding other humans. 

Dib is rich (probably). This one being more of a headcanon- in the series Dib wants for no material object, he wastes technology on his explorations like it’s something he can just pick up from the dollar store, his father is a world renowned scientist with access to crazy technology and the ears of world leaders. I think he’d feel entitled to one or two things 

4. Gaz is not her brothers keeper. 

She’s not responsible for his mental health, she’s not responsible for keeping him in line and “normal”. Most of the time she doesn’t want a damn thing to do with him. If we’re going by the standards of the IZ tv show, the only times that Gaz interfered with Dibs paranormal investigations were when Professor M. Was also involved. Either she wanted to see her dad and Dibs antics were getting in the way (forcing her to intervene), or she was directly ordered by their dad to keep Dib out of trouble.  Sure, you could argue that she would beat the shit out of Dib for doing something she didn’t like- but that wouldn’t “fix” the mind of a very stubborn person. It might even make them dig their heels in even deeper out of spite and bitterness as a “fuck you I’m right you’re wrong” 

Furthermore, as Gaz gets older she’s going to have her own life to worry about and might stop tolerating the way Prof. M uses her as a middle man to deal with his “poor insane son”. She’s under no obligation to fix any of the phases Dibs life might go through. If Dib was unpleasant enough, and Gaz had the resources to leave, I think she might just bail on him. 

5. Dib is arrogant 

He's gonna do what he thinks is the best course of action unless you physically stop him from doing so. He comes from a place of thinking that he is right, the opinion of anyone else is secondary. Dib will do “what needs to be done” for “the greater good”. Whatever he thinks that “good” is. He wants to play the white knight at any cost. He cannot be in the wrong, or that bravado towards being righteous in the end crumbles. I think Dib would subscribe to a “the ends justify the means” mentality

6. Dib would harm another person to get what he wanted

In a room with a moose, Dib debates letting himself die just to take his entire class down with him. In the unaired episode “return of Keef”, he co-operates with Zim in an attempt to make Keef explode, because he thinks Keef is irritating. Dib used Gaz to test out an ancient spell book, cursed Gaz to only taste pork, and then only helped fix the problem when threatened with physical violence. This could be the kind of thinking that gets worse over time as more people mock his attempts to save and protect them. Why care about people that don’t even give a shit if they live or die?  Dib is a smart fringe personality in his world, and the otherness that he feels for that could lead to a sociopathic way of thinking if things went bad enough 

7. Dib does not care about other peoples personal space

Dib hides cameras in Zims house. Dib ran right past the front gate at NASA Place, Dib chased a baby big foot up a radio tower. Dib bullied Zim physically on the playground using his known weaknesses against him. Dib would do anything to get the evidence he needed to prove what he wanted to prove, and that would get him in trouble. Repeatedly

8. Antisocial tendencies (like spending countless hours fused to a chair, or most of your young adult life spent hunched over a desk at a computer screen) make it difficult to smoothly socially integrate, and the world of Invader Zim is fuckin' mean

You know the world he comes from is mean. However, assuming Dib did find community somewhere, who’s to say they would agree with him? Or like him? Maybe one of them would cause problems for him that were bad enough he’d have to leave. I’ve always found that the IZ portrayal of earth to be like this funny cynical parody of a dystopian police state america. If we’re going by “what can go wrong will go wrong”, Dibs social integration wouldn’t get easier without a bunch of effort on Dibs part. Maybe Dib would have to pretend to be somebody unlike himself just to get by in his day to day adult life. If we see Dibs country of residence as a police state, the world Dib grows up in would encroach heavily on his personal privacy, and that might make him even stranger via paranoia 

9. Sadistic tendencies towards anything paranormal (obsessed with the act of dominating and exposing the unknown)

Dib is a fucking jerk to Zim (rightfully so), but Dib is a dick to pretty much every supernatural thing he comes across. Either out of an excess of enthusiasm, or using a supernatural being to further his own plans, or from an invasion of privacy, or being an irritant to the entity he’s dealing with. He LIKES to be mean to them.  He  wishes to have mastery over knowing how they work. (maybe it’s more fair to say Dib is a voyeur?)  

This is more headcanon than anything, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he might also want to control the paranormal for his own purposes. If Dib could say- catch a ghost in a jar so he could show it to everyone, he’d do it. If he could trick a werewolf into transforming on stage in front of a large audience? He’d do that.

10. Dib is created to be Zims equal

Dib is as “evil” as Zim is and vice versa. Neither of them is good, or pure, or morally justified. It’s a nice little grey dynamic. Both characters think they’re entirely in the right when they act. That they often aren’t in the right is fun because then you get to write/draw/ think about how they’d react to the consequences. Dib could still totally be a hero in his own mind, despite setting an apartment block on fire to flush out a coven of litches.

The reverse of this is also true, Zim can do nice things, and occasionally be good as Dib can be good. I figure the Zim/Dib dynamic changes for everyones interpretations at least somewhat. Having Zims terrible actions rub off on Dib as their battles escalate is a really fun way to go about exploring their relationship 

11. I like the it

There is no right or wrong way to enjoy a cartoon character! Live to make yourself happy in fandom! If you ever thought you needed permission to create rancid content, I’m sorry you felt pressured not to do it. 

You want to make a serial killer Dib?? You want to make a basement dwelling depressed zit covered Dib?? You want to make a Dib who struggles with his trauma through substance abuse?? Go HAM!! 

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep19

OK this episode was actually just fucking with me by having Rika at a Western-style preppy boarding school drinking tea in a parlor and having debates with people. This level of concentrated Umineko content bait is going to literally kill me at some point.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus even more Umineko stuff, but honestly who can even blame me at this point, lmao]

I don’t think I commented on it last week, partly because I was hoping we’d get the actual visuals for it in this episode, but the new ED theme is extremely good. I think I like it a lot more than the first one, but they’re both really good. I’m kinda biased though, since the new ED feels extremely Umineko-y, but still, it’s really good.

I’m kinda surprised that we still haven’t gotten the visuals for it yet. And instead of just having the ED theme play over the final scene of the episode or something, it was another round of having the credits roll over a black screen for the duration of the ED, which makes the continued lack of visuals really noticeable. I guess it’s possible that they just haven’t completed the animation for it yet, but I’m hoping that they’re holding back on it because something about the visuals for it is a spoiler for something that’ll happen in the next episode or two. And that makes me really curious to see what it might show, since at this point there’s only a narrow list of things that could probably be ‘spoilers’ for upcoming stuff in this arc.

Realistically I doubt it’d be on the level of straight up showing Umineko characters, but I’m probably still gonna get my hopes up anyway, lol.

At the very least, with how this episode brings us to 1987, and we know that Rika dies as a teenager in 1988, we’re rapidly approaching the point where everything goes to shit, and we already know that Satoko apparently got contacted by Oyashiro-sama, so honestly it wouldn’t be that strange for some kind of witch character to show up, even if maybe they’ll be presented in a somewhat abstract and indirect way.

Anyway, this episode went a long way to show the path of trauma that leads Satoko to initiating the new loop, but I think there’s going to be more going on in the next episode or so that really pushes her over the edge. Obviously she’s already in a downwards spiral because of Rika drifting away from her, and her being socially isolated all over again, but I don’t think this alone would make her go as far as trapping Rika in an endless torture loop.

I wonder if maybe Satoko is going to start getting directly bullied by the other girls at the school, rather than just being ostracized by them. It’d suck to see it happen, but it’d be the sort of thing that’d make her situation even worse than it is now. 

From what we heard here about how the school runs, I don’t think they’d directly expel Satoko for having low grades, but if she winds up slipping into the Special Class, it’d probably make her feel more and more like everything could fall apart for her at any moment, which could also make her way more volatile.

I’m pretty sure we already know that Rika ends up getting killed in 1988, and that’s how she got thrown into the new loop, so I’m curious to see how that ends up panning out. Satoko might just end up snapping and straight up killing her out of anger, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some kind of horrible accident. With what Satoko was saying in this episode about wishing she could just have fun setting up traps around the school, I could see her setting up a situation that ends up getting Rika killed.

Either way, it feels like we’re on the brink of disaster, and I’d be surprised if it takes more than one more episode to show how everything falls apart and the loops start.

Which is also making me wonder how the arc as a whole will be paced out. In spite of being the longest arc in the show, it feels like there’s still a LOT that needs to be covered. We still need at least one more episode to conclude this big flashback sequence, then we’ll probably get some sort of flashback to show how the Gou question arcs played out in the background to solve those mysteries, and then we still have to go back to the end of Nekodamashi to follow up on that whole cliffhanger, and get into whatever the true ending of the show will be.

I still doubt that we’ll get a full second season, but I’m just not sure if five more episodes will be enough to do everything it needs to do.

At the very least, I’ve basically given up hope on Gou doing more than the bare minimum to touch upon Rena or Shion’s backstories at this point, lol.

I’m also still wondering what the ending will be like in the first place. Ideally everything would just work out fine and Rika and Satoko will talk things out and resolve everything peacefully after we return to Nekodamashi, but I’m feeling more and more like this will have a darker ending than that. Mostly because it really feels like this is barreling straight towards the ‘Bern/Lambda origin story’ route, and that just makes me feel like the ending will be really depressing and make it more clear why Bern is so messed up in Umineko.

And on that note, on top of it just being really nice teasing, it’s actually kinda neat to see Rika entering this sort of Western-style ‘high society’ life, since it goes a long way to clarify why Bern’s entire personality and aesthetic is the way it is. They never really ‘explained’ it in Umineko, aside from it just matching more with Umineko’s more Western-style setting, and in a lot of ways it feels like this ‘explanation’ was thought up way after Umineko was written anyway, but even as a retroactive explanation it’s still nice to see them show why Rika ends up that way. They haven’t shown exactly why she’s so bitter in Umineko, but at least now we know why she’s the sort of person who likes stuff like this.

In a lot of ways, everything about this whole arc and the St. Lucia’s stuff kinda feels like Ryukishi’s sort of clumsy way of directly tying together these loose threads between Higurashi and Umineko, and showing us exactly why Bern ends up the way she does. I kinda agree with the criticisms I’ve seen that Rika apparently idolizing high society upper-class life and seeing St Lucia’s of all places as Heaven on earth feels really forced, and I think that has a lot to do with what I said about how Ryukishi probably just designed Bern as a Western-style goth lolita because that fit Umineko’s setting more, and he’s only just now trying to go back and give an in-universe explanation for it via Gou. So for better or worse it kinda has this vibe of retconning parts of her character in order to brute-force this connection between the two series.

Though I can’t help but be OK with it, at least for now, since it just makes it feel like he’d only be this overt about it if he was actually setting up for something better that justified making up all this new story stuff just to contextualize Bern’s whole character in Umineko. It might just be his way of tying things together and he’s not setting up for anything, but it’d feel like a waste at this point if he’s not, considering how many people are already feeling like he’s messing with Rika’s character retroactively to make it all tie into Umineko. So it’d at least feel more justified if it’s actually setting up for something along the lines of an Umineko anime remake, even if that’s still probably just wishful thinking. 

Anyway, I think this episode is gonna cause lots of discourse about how people feel about both Rika and Satoko’s choices in this episode, but my stance right now is just that they’re both understandable, while also both being in the wrong in their own ways. Ultimately this just boils down to them not communicating with each other properly. I can see what people mean by Rika’s whole attitude here feeling out of character, but I can understand why she’s genuinely enjoying her new life, and honestly she’s always had major issues with not talking to people about things and just going with the flow, so I get why she’s not doing more to reach out to Satoko, especially since doing so would mean rocking the boat with her new friends who clearly all look down on Satoko.

And on the other side of things, I think Satoko’s whole side of things makes total sense, even though she’s also in the wrong for continuing to respond to trauma by bottling it all up and rejecting any help or communication that people offer her. That at least feels like a totally natural extension of her personality, especially when you think about how the current timeline is one where Teppei never came back to the village, and so she never had to have her whole character arc where she learns how to open up about her trauma to people and seek help. Also the end of the episode makes it feel pretty likely that this is going in the direction of her re-developing HS, which would go a long way to explain why she’d go into a full on downwards spiral, mentally. I highly doubt that she actually got completely cured for good, even if Hanyuu’s absence changed how the virus works.

Which also reminds me that we still haven’t heard anything about what happened to Satoshi, despite them talking about the virus more or less going away. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s past the point of no return, and learning about his fate might be one of the things that fully pushes Satoko over the edge.

Either way, I get why a lot of people don’t really like where this is all going, but I’m at least enjoying it for what it is [even though I’ve had to really readjust my expectations for it, lol]. But tbh at this point a big chunk of this is just me being hype about the pipe dream of a new Umineko anime, and if this ends up not leading to that, I’ll probably be a lot harsher on Gou in hindsight after it ends.

[foppishmuses]

Did Dwight have any pets as a child? Any imaginary friends? What kind of movies does he like? What's his idea of a perfect date?

thank u so much for indulging me. i talked so much i had to put this under a cut

Dwight had no pets until he was like 10 when his parents got him a mutt from a shelter, which he loved with his Entire Being to a very Undiagnosed Neurodivergent Child Level. he had few friends and was very heavily bullied in school so a dog's unconditional love was one of his biggest sources of comfort as a kid. it died of old age when he was in his mid twenties. he still has sad dreams where that dog is alive again and dies horribly in the trials. it probably had a very generic dog name like bandit.

he wanted a dog when he got his own place, but the landlords didn't allow them, so he got a cat. a cat is probably more within his ability to take care of anyway, because he has trouble even taking care of himself. on his days off half the time he wouldn't even feed himself, but he would feet his cat. he adopted her from a shelter. he also has nightmares about Kitty Pryde dying now that he's not there to take care of her.

he had tons of imaginary friends, because he did not have real friends. mostly they were characters from fictional media he liked rather than his own creation or a single specific imaginary friend. one of dwight's few canon descriptions is that he was "scrawny and geeky throughout high school," so i imagine dwight was the kind of kid who obsessed, hard, and when you're a kid and you're like that, when you're weird and shy and you care too much, you play alone a lot. he could tell he was different and all the other kids knew it, too. he wanted to be frodo, but he had to make up his own samwise the brave. he was very lonely. his ability to be social is all kinds of generally fucked up now from a childhood of being isolated and ostracized.

sci fi movies are his favorite! he likes fantasy too, really anything high concept and that takes you away from modern life. he likes the comics better than superhero movies, because he's that kind of a snob. (at least he's not a gatekeepy nerd. he's too eager to help people who are new to things.) he's in it for the escapism. his favorite movie is probably something kind of underwhelming to have as a favorite movie but that he fully imprinted on as a teenager. maybe sky captain and the world of tomorrow, or the rocketeer. something like that. he used to like horror, mainly when it intersected with sci fi and had cool monsters. he's a "twilight zone twist" kind of nerd, loves sci fi that has a clever message. he probably really likes star trek, lol. talky optimistic alien show about teamwork. loser probably still has a crush on the 10th doctor. horror would hit different now though :(

i think one of the things he misses most about the "real" world is that there's no movies or serialized television or comic books around the campfire. he misses stories. he probably likes the nights when the survivors are feeling particularly chatty or close and trade stories around the campfire. he never really had much to contribute to those conversations, because he believes his life was and is repetitive and dull, but he really likes listening to the wild tales Ace or whoever weaves about their old lives.

his idea of a perfect date....... it's not very elaborate! he'd probably just like to hang out quietly with someone who he genuinely has fun with. maybe go to a movie, or to a cider mill, or just play video games with them. if he likes someone, he probably does feel sexual attraction for his crush and he's not opposed to things getting more sexual, but it's not a priority for him. it's kind of hard to tell his ideal date from his ideal hang out session. he'd just really like to feel like he belongs with someone for a little while.

[raggydraws]

Crow fam headcanons (Crow, Night, and Breeze), please? Personally, I believe Crow loved Nightcloud but never showed it because he was afraid to love again because it only ever gets people hurt

Hewwo! Sorry this took so long, been real busy and also this is one heck of controversial family so I wanted to be careful with what I said. But I hope you enjoy!

I swear to the Erins that somewhere in a Field Guide Rock said that out of all his mates Nightcloud was the one meant to pad alongside him the longest. Now that probably meant that she wasn't going to die?? Or that she was going to remain his mate for a long time but my baby brain always thought it was because she was the one Crowfeather was going to love the most.

But I love it when people end relationships amicably and even though it took awhile for Night and Crow to become friends again I'm real glad they did.

Also this is gonna be really long (cause I both and hate this family) and probably needs a Trigger Warning for death mentions.

Imma do some individual headcanons for them and then the family together!

Nightcloud

Nightcloud is one of many Windclan cats who showed up out of nowhere during Mudclaw's coup, but I like to imagine she been there the whole time. Nightcloud is the niece of Barely, daughter of either Jump or Hoot, and was brought to the clan by her mother. She was promptly adopted by Tornear, a kind tom who was also the brother of the deputy Mudclaw. She was raised exclusively by her adopted father and uncle, but while the deputy and his brother loved and accepted her without hesitation, the rest of the clan was very weary. Nightcloud grew up feeling a little isolated from the clan and thus grew a thick skin and quick wit to defend herself with. After Mudclaw's death she was ostracized even more for following his coup, only being welcomed by her Father, her former mentor Ashfoot and her childhood rival Crowfeather.

Nightcloud had pretty bad anxiety after Crowpaw left on his journey, it left her feeling very alone and out of control, she started taking cues from her uncle Mudclaw to feel more in control of her life and emotions. After he dies she's left feeling out of control and

She was named Nightcloud for her fluffy fur and her usually calm personality, she likes her name but feels like it doesn't her very well.

Crowfeather

Crowfeather was born one to two-ish months after the battle with Bloodclan to his still living mother Ashfoot and his deceased father Deadfoot. Crowkit was born with two siblings, a sister with black fur whom he doesn't remember very well, and a sister who resembled his mother. Unfortunately his sisters passed away and left Crowkit, the runt of his litter, by himself. Almost all of Windclan merged on the nursery not long after to give their condolences to the high ranked queen, which only served to stress out both Ashfoot and Crowkit. Ashfoot basically put a ban on the nursery after that and keep Crowkit by her side at all times, she could see her own anxiety growing in him and didn't want him to be uncomfortable. Thus Crowkit was never properly socialized, something Ashfoot tried to remedy by introducing him to her friend's kitten, Nightkit. This lead to the childhood rivalry and uh 'friendship' between Nightcloud and Crowfeather, they pushed each to be better and shares their hopes of being welcomed by the clan. While Crowpaw was considered very reputable due to his mother's own reputation, his poor attitude and lack of social skills made him very unliked, even his mentor grew frustrated with him and spent little time teaching him to understand or control his emotions.

I also like to think that if he hadn't asked to be named after Feathertail, Tallstar would've called him Crowhop after his father's original name!

Breezepelt

Breezepelt was born 3 to 4 months after The Three, very weak and sickly to Nightcloud and Crowfeather. He doesn't really remember much from his childhood as he slept a lot and spent a lot of time in the nursery. What few he has are of his father, the two quietly sitting in the sunlight away from any loud noises. He's fond of those memories but it hurts to think about them sometimes.

I remember reading, like a prologue or something, of Breezekit seeing sunlight coming through a hole somewhere and thinking about how much he loved the color. Than Nightcloud found him and commented on how she hoped his eyes would stay the kitten blue color they were, while Breezekit hoped they'd be the color of the sun. So! Breezepelt loves to sunbathe and definitely has rusting on his stomach. It's the only time anyone would see the usually angry, resting b*tch faced tom relaxed and happy. Yellow in general is the fastest way to calm him down and to get on his good side. He hated the Dark Forest, the darkness made him feel trapped and amplified his negative emotions, he was there of his violation of course but a little voice in his head would always reminds him that he belonged in the sunlight.

I have somewhat thought of a better redemption arc for Breezepelt, at least a skeleton for one, but it involves his first 'mission' for the Dark Forest. When he goes to kill Jayfeather at the moonpool he wasn't expecting the heavily pregnant Poppyfrost to be there, he expects Brokenstar to call it off (he wants to believe that Brokenstar wouldn't make him attack a queen) but all he says is to not leave any witnesses. Afterwards when Honeyfern kicks his ass he's a bit shaken, he knows the Dark Forest isn't full of great cats but, his delusions of finally regaining his father's attention had clouded his judgement. As more and more cats start to join the Dark Forest the more he realizes that he isn't alone in the way he feels.

Antpelt, a friend of his, joined hoping his newfound strength would impress the cat he liked.

Harespring, the son of his leader, is even there because his own father ignored him too.

Hollowflight, a Riverclan cat he comes to respect, is bullied and ridiculed for his heritage.

Even Ivypool of Thunderclan is there for the attention and validation she so desperately wants from her own clanmates.

Cue Dark Forest therapy sessions. Cue the very awkward friendships of Ivypool, Hollowflight, Antpelt and, Breezepelt. Ivypool and Breezepelt bond over neglect and maybe Ivypool (after she realizes she can find happiness with herself) convinces Breezepelt that maybe he didn't need his father's attention to be happy. He had a mother who loved him, a clan that respected him "and hey, you've got us too, right?"

Alright now all family headcanons are post Crowfeather's trial cause I'm not touching OoTs.

Breezepelt and Crowfeather don't spend much time with each other. They're still very awkward with each other but they bond over watching Breezepelt's kits together. Sunbathing is their favorite pastime.

Nightcloud and Crowfeather are just friends, they do kind of rekindle their friendly appreticehood rivalry tho. Whenever hunting is good and over hunting won't hurt anything they compete to see who can bring the most rabbits back. Breezepelt joins them sometimes and gets praised quite a bit for smoking them both.

Brindlewing and Smokehaze know all of the New Prophecy Gang stories, ones Breezepelt never got to hear. Cue Crowfeather being surrounded by his grandkids and son listening to his horrible Squirrelflight impression from when she was stuck in the fence.

Breezepelt usually has the say for if he wants Crowfeather to be around for family things, when Heathertail got pregnant the first time he was real nervous and didn't want his father around her. Crowfeather understood and kept his distance. Second litter Breezepelt let him visit right after they were born and the two babies cried about how cute they were.

Family therapy with Kestrelflight. Just, someone telling Nightcloud she was reacting reasonably to a very bad situation. Crowfeather's issues with connecting with people and lashing out when he can't be with someone or to keep them away. Breezepelt being told that while his parents issues did influence his own he is still responsible for his actions as a grown ass adult and that it's up to him to break the cycle he was unfairly stuck in.

Breezepelt will probably take the moonpool incident to his grave. Tbh he may of thought of naming one of his daughters after Poppyfrost to somehow atone for it but chicken out.

Nightcloud adores that most of her family are girls now. She and all her granddaughters (Plus Heathertail) can and will chase the two Toms down and sit on them.

Nightcloud gets a girlfriend and excitedly tells Crowfeather about it. Crowfeather gets a boyfriend and excitedly tells Nightcloud about it. Breezepelt gets a new stepmom and stepdad and gets double the amount of parental validation he's been chasing after his entire life.

[ofstarstuff]

Listen, can we talk about Nott's humor?

I know a good chunk of it is Sam being Sam. Sam is the class clown. Sam plays horrible situations as if they were humorous (and then twists the knife later, because he's that kind of a jerk and I love it).

But.

But a good chunk of it is Nott. Nott's humor is different from Taryon's is different from Scanlan's. I've talked before how Sam approaches comedy through his characters, but I want to specifically talk about Nott.

Nott is incredibly sharp. Her Charisma of 5 is abysmal, but her Intelligence is 16, and boy does she know how to play it for fun. She's this woman who was bullied and ostracized and loved and lost and killed and fucking enslaved and despite it all has an incredibly sharp wit. I was re-watching @apricatt-art's lovely "Everyone Gets A Funeral" animatic and oh boy, is Nott's humor sharp and layered.

Let's look at the circumstances.

At this point, nobody but her knows she has died before. Specifically, Nott was murdered. It was premeditated. It wasn't a blow in the middle of combat. It was designed as part of a process to make her suffer and take everything she loves away from her.

She knows what it is like to feel isolated from those she cares about. When Yasha is struggling with feeling abandoned by the rest of the Nein, Nott understands how she feels. The circumstances are vastly different, and she doesn't know Yasha's past beyond Molly's death, but she knows what it feels like to be forced apart from her loved ones.

Just the previous day, Nott nearly died. Again. To save someone she loves. She has had a hell of a time, they are on the ocean, she is surrounded by fear. But here is someone struggling with abandonment. It's a justified struggle, Yasha was left alone!

And so Nott turns the situation into a funny one. She would be justified in going "yeah, you wouldn't want to be there anyway, it was awful, I nearly died". But she doesn't. She starts talking about FUNERALS as a way of breaking the tension and sorrow. She's still pretty scared of Yasha! Yasha is huge and she's from Xhorhas and she doesn't really talk about herself. Yasha is terrifying to a skittish goblin girl. And yet here she is, defusing this moment by talking up how outraged she is she didn't get a funeral.

This woman. Who doesn't know if she ever got a funeral herself. Whose family thinks her dead. Whose family lives in a town essential to the supply lines of an empire at war. Nott has every reason to feel tense about this situation, to let others talk instead. Yet here she is.

"Was mine... nice?" There's an undercurrent of sorrow we weren't privy to at the time, and yet. It's so goddamn funny, even now. "Did anyone come--I guess not, you were on the ocean."

Yasha: "I, uh--" Nott: "Did you say anything?" Yasha: "I did say some things--" Nott: "Some nice words?" Yasha: "--that I probably should not share with you, Nott." Nott: "...Like, they're bad words or something?" Yasha: "Something like that." Nott: "You CURSED at my funeral?!" Yasha: "I didn't have a funeral for you." [ouch] Nott: "I DIDN'T EVEN GET A FUNERAL, EVERYBODY ELSE DID?" Yasha: "I didn't know if you were actually gone!" [o u c h] Nott: "EVERYONE got a funeral but me!?" Yasha: "No, none of you did!" Nott: "OH MY GOD! You didn't give any of us funerals?" Yasha: "Because I didn't know if you were alive or not! I was still holding on to maybe that you were and you just disappeared and you just didn't want to stay with me anymore, you didn't want me as part of the group."

And here is where Yasha opens up a little and Jester and Beau talk with her. But she only got to this moment because Nott pushed her with all this ridiculousness. And then Nott wraps up with a group rule about timing for funerals for missing members. Which, again, ouch in hindsight.

She is brilliant, her humor is razor-sharp, and on top of everything, now we get to look at this moment and also see the tragedy behind all the comedy. Goddamn, Sam.

[tsuuyuri]

tw for suicide, death, eating disorders, fat-shaming, skinny-shaming, anxiety, depression, bullying, etc. just don’t read if you aren’t in a good place. 

i swear to god. 

any knetizen (because yes, this is a specifically a knet problem) that sits back after sulli’s death and acts like they didnt treat her like a piece of meat to buy and sell and eat and spit out and call too fat and too skinny and so selfish and so ugly and so “out of line” like she was some evil snake when she was always just a girl being herself, expressing herself, being different from the “traditional ideal korean woman”, struggling with mental illness and eating disorders in an industry that is stressful and unhealthy and cruel and with “fans” who are absolutely nobody in comparison to who she was that sit in their homes and talk trash about her body, her “attitude”, her sex life, and whatever else on the internet for fun. 

i am sick and tired of people making excuses for korean misogyny and toxic beauty standards because “oh it’s a different culture”, whatever! a culture that promotes sink or swim standards in its education system and requires everyone gets plastic surgery no matter what in order to be considered worth anything needs to fucking change! it’s killing people and it’s been killing people for a long time! south korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. koreans and honestly everyone need to wake up and stop acting like this is just “crazy celebrities” because it’s not. they’re just the ones we all hear about. you don’t hear about the teenager 5 blocks down who committed suicide last week after being bullied for being gay. you don’t hear about the student that committed suicide last month because they aren’t an academic person and their parents called them stupid and punished them for not having top grades. we don’t hear about them because they aren’t famous. but we need to look at these famous people who we think have everything that makes life worth living, commit suicide and understand how much that shit probably happens with just regular ole people. for every celebrity who kills themselves, there’s 10 more non-celebrities. 

every time someone innocent commits suicide, it’s murder. it’s murder by society. it’s murder by people who tear them apart until they can’t be sewn back together again and then wonder how it could happen. 

sulli was anorexic. being anorexic is so, so fucking painful and hard and awful and it’s so much deeper than just being “pretty”. sometimes it’s needing to feel like you have something in your life under control. sometimes it’s wanting to be smaller so maybe people can’t see you anymore because you were abused. sometimes it’s just wanting to die slowly. i went to an inpatient ward 3 times by the time i turned 18 and had tubes shoved down my nose and throat because i just couldn’t eat a thing without panicking and feeling guilty. the anxiety and depression after i got out each time was so crippling that i couldn’t leave my house. i can’t even imagine getting on stage and performing in that state like people criticized sulli for not doing. “oh she’s lazy, she’s selfish, she’s not taking it seriously, she’s just acting like a princess!” she’s a young girl who was having panic attacks, being told her body type isn’t right to be an idol, who was depressed, who wasn’t sleeping enough hours. she was sick. and you made her even more sick. who the hell would want to perform for people who don’t appreciate it? negative words outweigh positive ones. netizens know that. be honest with yourself. they thought it was fun to poke at someone. they felt good talking bad about someone. they thought it was “okay” because she’s a celebrity and apparently when you sign a contract in the kpop industry, your humanity dies and nobody has to think about how their words and actions make you feel anymore. 

women in kpop are attacked all the fucking time for doing normal things. 

i looked at pictures of sulli when she looked her healthiest and i thought she was beautiful. koreans called her flat, flabby, said she had cankles, thick legs, called her fucking sulliphant. i looked at pictures of sulli when she was so thin she should’ve been in a hospital like i had been and i was scared for her but her smile was still beautiful. koreans criticized her for “getting shots and liposuction, oh it’s not natural, the bruises aren’t pretty” or praised her for finally not being “ugly” and having a pretty bodyline, having skinny legs, and for finally discovering the “true wealth of a woman is her looks” and the worst part, some still called her sulliphant and fat and ugly when she was easily under 100 lbs. it’s just unfair. it’s so unfair and horrible and it happens every day, to every female idol, some less and some more, and it happens to every single woman and even men now in some places. 

and now, im sitting here sobbing, not just because i regret not being a bigger support when sulli needed that even though it’s not my fault i wasn’t as aware of kpop, but also because i know if i were a kpop idol while going through depression, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, paranoia, and anorexia nervosa... i would be dead. i would have been dead years ago. i would be just like sulli. bullied to death by her own mind and by people who think you are their doll to throw around. 

no one should have to “stay strong” through comments like that. not a celebrity, not anyone. no one. 

korean beauty standards need an overhaul. i have had enough. anorexic isn’t beautiful. it’s painful. it should not be a singer’s job to be nice to look at in a very particular and unnatural way that only 10% of people are born looking like. 

sulli having a boyfriend got koreans so fucking angry, calling her unprofessional, a cock-sucking whore, a slut, whatever other disgusting words you can think of, but men were just as quick to ogle her and take photos up her skirt for their own enjoyment because “oh well she’s an idol, that’s what she’s there for”. women were jealous of sulli for having access to handsome and rich men they wouldn’t because she’s an idol and they’re not, so they shamed her for it. men weren’t mad about sulli having a sex life, they were mad about sulli having a sex life that didn’t involve her fucking them, so they shamed her for it. sulli was just being a person. but being a person isn’t congruent with being an idol, for some reason. 

sulli spiraled into reckless behavior and they blamed her for that too when they drove her to it. 

“she’s a celebrity, it’s what she signed up for.” 

no. she didn’t. she signed up to sing, dance, and make people happy. she didn’t sign up for people to tear her apart. 

his case is significantly different, but it’s a part of an epidemic all the same, so i’ll mention him once and not again: jonghyun didn’t pass away just for south korea to learn nothing about ignoring and shaming mental illness and torment another already tortured idol into leaving too.  

this isn’t simple cause and effect, this is prolonged bullying and attacking someone, beating them again and again until they can’t stand up again. this isn’t an isolated issue. it’s years of criticizing, terrorizing, dehumanizing, ignoring, and taking for granted, that leads to one very horrible, very permanent, very quick outcome. 

so yeah. any knet who says “rest in peace sulli” needs to rethink if they really deserve to be saying that. if you ever called this poor girl names, criticized her body as not “aesthetically pleasing”, shamed her for being in a relationship and having sex as a grown woman, sexualized her regularly, exploited her, and/or contributed at all to her feeling this horrifically bad about herself to the point she felt alienated from everyone and like she couldn’t continue living... you don’t get to grieve. you get to feel guilty. you get to feel horrible about what you said and did to this woman who was only human, and who was ostracized for being herself and for appearing strong until she couldn’t anymore. 

sulli, you are not a bad person. you are an angel now and forever. i wish we had done better for you. rest in peace, sweet girl, and know i will always think of you. you will never be just a memory. you are alive through those who truly love you and know you. 

and if you or anyone you know is struggling with bullying, depression, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, etc., as always, please reach out and get the help you deserve. support is a phone call away. you never walk alone. even if it’s a complete stranger, there are people who want to help and who want you to live on. i want you to live on. i want us all to fight these demons and to work toward a better future. it is possible. we can and must do better. we can and must love ourselves and each other. 

be kind, take care, ask for help, give help. 

celebrity, non-celebrity, women, men, children, black, white, asian, latinx, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, non-binary, cishet, disabled, able-bodied, neuroatypical, neurotypical, etc. we are all human. 

[moonlit-maiden]

On Nico di Angelo, "Pairing the Spare" and How to Shaft a Complex Character in Less Than 500 Pages

This will be long. Strap in. This is long overdue.

So more longtime followers of mine may already know this but I adore Nico di Angelo from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. They also know I continue to eastly, to this day, about how he was handled at the end of the Heroes of Olympus series. Now, I've never fully delved into the 'why's and I will do so now as it's probably best to actually articulate it at some point instead of continually lamenting it without presenting rationale.

First: WHY do I love his character so much? It all boils down to shared/similar experiences for social ostracization. Growing up, I was quickly pushed out of social circles due to who my parents were; immigrants. Simply existing with the ethnicity and cultural heritage I had labeled me as untouchable. To sum it up succinctly; white but not the "right" kind of white. Keep in mind this was at the end of the Cold War; attitudes towards Slavic peoples were poor as hell. Fuck, they still are 30 years later! Nico is ousted due to his heritage too; being a Hades child. It's not something he chose nor controlled. He himself did nothing wrong to any of the campers yet when word got out they pushed him away. The same happened to me. As soon as the school kids and/or parents realized my parents were Slavic immigrants they shoved me out. It still hurts to this day. As such, I can deeply empathize with Nico.

Why does this matter? Because that blanket social rejections fucks people up. Nico is shown throughout the series to be distrustful, preferring to isolate himself. He has been shown time and time again he is unwanted due to being a Hades child. Eventually you just... stop trying. When you beat a dog enough times it stops coming around. This is the same thing. In addition, Nico has lost his elder sister, Bianca. The one person he felt understood him because she, too, was similar to him. Now I have Opinions on Bianca that would piss off 99% of the fandom but it's irrelevant here. Her death occurs shorts before or after it's revealed Nico is a Child of Hades. He is 10 years old with no one and the whole camp rejects him. It's a cruel thing to do to someone no matter how much you try and justify it. Rick did an incredible job highlighting how racism, ethnocentrism and bullying harms a child. Nico immediately became my favorite for this and I applauded Rick for having the balls to shine a very uncomfortable light on a situation similar to mine. A situation, I'm very sure many first generation or immigrant kids can relate to.

So where did it all go wrong? To be blunt, Blood of Olympus. Now, the final volume of the HHO series is a hot mess in general. Almost ALL characters get shafted on way or another with mischaracterization, simplification or backtracker on character growth. Not to mention the plot feels very slapdash and messy at times. But again, another subject. We see Reyna and Coach Hedge start to really get to know Nico and realize the extent at how bad his abuse has been at the hands of monsters and demigods alike. Neither feels this is right and shows it as best they can while respecting Nico's boundaries. In the previous book, House of Hades, Jason does the same thing. But then we finally get back to Camp Half Blood and shit falls apart for Nico's arc.

It's plainly obvious to anyone who's ready the series in full that Nico is traumatized, even moreso then most of the cast. He has been physically tortured multiple times, psychologically tortured by the camp and emotionally manipulated by several individuals. Keep in mind, by HOO, Nico is roughly 14. Fourteen. Can you even image how that feels?! He's only just now, after Jason, Hazel and Reyna's persistence that they will not hurt him, that they genuinely care for his well being, that they don't care about his heritage (and don't care about his sexuality, from Jason specifically). And then Will appears and Nico magically forgets 4 years of pining for Percy. It's so jarring, like a screeching record! This is when we enter the issue.

In writing, there are many rules. Like all rules, they can be bent of broken under certain circumstances. The rule in question is the 'pair the spare' rule. The rule states that if the pain cast has paired off, do not pair of the "spare" aka the odd man out unless it's been led up to. Rick chose to ignore this rule and pair Nico with Will, citing that as a canon LGBT character, he wanted to send the message to LGBT kids that they were worthy of love. This in itself is not a bad message. What IS bad is execution. First, Will is a background character. He very much has potential, don't get me wrong! But outside of having a few minor scenes in final volume of the PJO series, Will has only ever been mentioned in passing. From what we've seen, he and Nico have never interacted. On top of that, Will who is a healer, completely dismisses Nico's trauma. This is a very big red flag. When someone is traumatized, particularly psychologically, the absolute last thing to do is to dismiss the experience as "teen angst" like Will does. It shows absolute disrespect for Nico as a human being. And he is a healer. He should know better. In addition, Nico himself is not fond of the dismissive personality Will is displaying, the 'I'm going to tell you what to do' persona because he's a doctor so 'doctor knows best'. And in Nico's POV he says as much in his inner monologue! Yet he's "drawn to him". I'm sorry, but I call bullshit. Nico has been shown in 9 1/2 books to be quite smart, paranoid about social intentions due to past experiences and won't take crap from no one, not even his own father, the Lord of the (fucking) Underworld. Yet he'll just grit his teeth and basically follow Will's lead with little complaint? It's so out of character it's jarring and painful.

We briefly see Nico and Will in the first Trials of Apollo book. They're acting like the normal couple with Nico being the "sassy, snarky" one of the pair. Please note it's been 6-8months since the end of BOO, in-universe. In this one scene it completely erases Nico's trauma, very valid feelings of distrust and hurt, his struggle with both his heritage and his sexuality, his years-long unrequited love for Percy, his grief over his sister and his struggle to make connections with his fellow demigods. Love is powerful but its not a cure-all. It doesn't make the years of hurt and abuse magically disappear (trust me. I know.) and it doesn't change someone's personality to well-adjusted.

Pairing Nico with Will at the end of BOO completely destroys his characterization from a writing standpoint. All the real struggle, grief and unpleasant consequences of abusing and bullying people who are "other" in socially-acceptable ways is wiped away in less then 50 pages. It also send a very VERY dangerous message to LGBT youth; find someone you're attracted to and they'll fix you. That's a toxic message to tell to straight kids so why the fuck would you tell it to LGBT kids!? Unlike most LGBT character in literature that I can tell are shoehorned it, Nico was planned to be gay from the start, I have no issue with this. What I do have issue with is throwing his character out the window so he can chase some cute blond ass. Nico deserves better then that as a character. People who suffered socially-acceptable abuse deserve better then that. Immigrants and first-generation kids deserved better then that. LGBT youth deserved better then that.

THAT is why I keep getting so pissed; Rick took a genuinely complex character and fucked him over so he could lazily pair the spare and not be accused of leaving the only canonically gay character single. But there is a reason 'do not pair the spare' is a rule. It's better to leave a character single then slapdashedly pair them up. This goes double for characters who have trauma in their life and trauma is a serious issue that should be respectfully addressed. Love is powerful. Love helps to heal. But the love of family (Hazel) or budding friends (Jason and Reyna) is just as important, valid and send a powerful message. It sends the message 'you are not alone. You are worthy of love. You are a human worthy of regarding of both your experiences and your fears.' Pairing Will with Nico completely and utterly stomps on this message. It sends horrible signals to LGBT youth and scraps his complex character into the token goth gay boy. And Nico di Angelo deserves better then what he was given.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.