#but then lots of things arent distressing but are illnesses. i dont know. but sometimes i get flooded with the same sensation of everything

[oatbugs]

do u ever get the beautiful dooming calming feeling that all of this right now is Out Of Time your entire world and all you know as even axiomatically true is Out Of Time and this is the flash happening before you die and it's not 19 or 20 or 80 years it is just a simultaneous moment at which you hallucinate and reflect and create . am i on my deathbed and if i am does it matter ? (there is still the reflections of light on water + the sky around the stars)

[shattered-catalyst]

Intro to OCD for the RPC part 1/?

This is a balmy 6 page document on the VERY BASICS of OCD by a person who has had OCD for over 15 years and knows their shit.

If you want to write a character who has OCD this series is going to be a good starting point. If you dont know much about OCD I encourage you to read it so you can be an ally to those of us who have the disorder.

OCD is made into a cultural joke and when there isnt the ‘Obsessive Cat disorder’ bullshit its an angst off with other people and their non-ocd intrusive thoughts. Its different. Do your research and be an ally.

This will cover the very very basics. The next post will look into subtypes of OCD and how those are experienced.

 Whomst can write it? 

Literally anyone as long as you 

● Do so respectfully and not make a mockery of the disorder and the harm it causes in peoples lives 

● Dont make OCD the characters single thing or boil them down to it entirely ● Do respect the experiences and opinions of muns who have the disorder if they have concerns about your portrayal.

● Dont milk it for angst - unless you have OCD in which case release some of your angst.

● Dont try and say you know what intrusive thoughts are because they have *insert any other neuro a-typical thing here* 

● Dont police how Muns who have OCD choose to portray it. Its our experience not yours. I like to write out my characters OCD as I experience OCD so my experiences are different from other muns. OCD is very diverse in its effects but always ask if you arent sure.

. What isnt OCD? 

● Cleanliness or organization- OCD is NEVER an adjective. 

● Planning/ Hypervigilance/Organized/Methodical 

● Turning light switches on and off, unplugging things (find out more on later time)

 ● “I have to organize my pencils otherwise it bothers me” “ I have to make sure my mattress is straight” “ my nails have to be the same length” are all typical responses from people WHO DO NOT have OCD. 

● Making sure objects are lined up neatly 

● Having things go in a particular order like the letters CDO as the joke goes

● Really loving Cats, Corgis, or Christmas; if you own any of these items i urge you to reflect and also send me 10$ (jk but do reflect)

The Barest minimum 

Google OCD this will be an advanced version of OCD. This will be long but if you want to be aware of others or want to write the character you will read it. 

OCD is made of Obsessions. Triggers. Anxiety, Compulsions/Rituals.

1. Obsessions are the thoughts 

2. Triggers are the object/person/image/situation/smell ETC 

3. The Anxiety occurs is at uncomfortable levels to the point of panic or anxiety attacks

 4. Compulsions or Rituals are performed 

*There is a variant of OCD called Pure O. In this individuals have the obsessions triggers and anxiety but there is NO compulsion or ritual. This is still valid OCD. 

Obsessions are the precursors to the flawed unwanted and harmful intrusive thoughts: 

Im going to use you so you really understand this because its important.If you misunderstand this you are basically encouraging a mental health condition and dont get a sticker for reading this far. 

First check out this link as it has ALL the subtypes and examples. 

Obsessions can be hidden by the intrusive thought and teasing them out can be difficult to do if you have the disorder because well its a disorder okay thats why. It boils down to ‘i could harm someone’ ‘i could cause harm’ ‘ i may have accidentally harmed ___’ ‘ i may accidentally harm’ etc 

This is the flawed powerful belief that predate the Intrusive Thought. 

Intrusive thoughts appear in every brain on earth. They are not special or unusual however intrusive thoughts with OCD get stuck in the brain- meaning they stay there no matter what you do. So yes , they are different from intrusive thoughts in other conditions. 

The thing about OCD is that it latches on to what you hold dear; it may be you are a caring person and love children and animals- your OCD would give you intrusive violent or sexual thoughts or images. These are horrible to experience. They are not welcome nor appreciated and there is no benefit or positive side to having them. 

If say social justice is something you hold dear your ocd may take the form of intrusive thoughts of slurs, jokes, visuals etc. These are horrible to experience and lead to high levels of anxiety and are not positive nor beneficial to have in any way shape or form. 

Maybe you would not harm someone or you value others; your OCD may present as graphic intrusive images or thoughts around poisoning, stabbing,accidental..ly murdering (yeah you read that right), hitting, insulting etc someone else 

I must emphasize this because it is critical that people understand POCD: for the sake of those of us who have OCD read this until its burned into your brain. 

This is the fucked up awful Obsessive thought that you are/were/ or could be sexually attracted to children. This is NOT pedophilia. People kill themselves over this because they are afraid that these intrusive thoughts are true. People isolate themselves and dont have families out of fear of harming a child. People take work in different fields or avoid areas with children out of the absolute terror their obsessive thoughts could be true. This is NOT pedophilia. There is NO attraction present.

Most people who experience POCD intrusive thoughts would rather punch a sharknado than even THINK of hurting a kid in any way shape or form. That is why the OCD does its thing it is like having an abusive brain. 

Again for clarity's sake 

If you value social justice -> the intrusive thoughts violate social justice stuff 

If you value animals -> intrusive thoughts come up with harming animals 

If you care about the protection and safety of children -> POCD 

Triggers would be the situation, scenario, object, person,creature, context etc that is related to the Obsession. It can be literally anything. 

What follows is a hell of a lot of anxiety that can range anywhere from discomfort to full on panic attacks. 

Everyone has different intrusive thoughts and everyone experiences different amounts of distress upon being triggered. 

● As a side bar. Do not ever try and expose someone to their triggers or write about a character being exposed to their triggers as a way to help ‘cure them’ or ‘expose them’ to ANYTHING. What you are doing is literally taking someone with a mental illness and shoving them into a breakdown and thats a piece of shit move. Exposure therapy does exist and is done by professionals TRAINED in ERP. My parents did this a lot and I am positive I am not alone in that experience. 

Compulsions or Rituals: Now you may be saying ‘hey i know what those are’ yeah dude me too and I have had ocd for over 15 years and trained in mental health for 7 and guess what. They teach ya wrong. 

Compulsions or ‘rituals’ are any behavior done to alleviate the anxiety from the intrusive thought and trigger object. 

This can be as passive as ‘i am leaving the room’ ‘ i am checking my body sensations’ ‘ i am trying SO HARD TO HEAR MY HEARTBEAT’ .

 It can also be repeating the same thing over and over. To illustrate this I once mentally chanted the same song lyric line on a 3 hour plane ride because otherwise we were all going to die. I took one for the whole team.

It can be somatic things like counting your heart beats, focusing on your breathing, swallowing, staring and not blinking for so many seconds. 

It can be readjusting clothing until the seams fit. It can be checking god yes checking IK its a common trope but it IS a compulsion that has ruined my life and can be as passive as checking my reality or texting for proof my cat is still alive. It can also be checking yourself for assurance you wouldnt do the intrusive thought or that the intrusive thought isnt going to happen.

Compulsions are mentally painful and sometimes physically painful; 

● Washing your hands with scalding water for 5+ minutes can lead to horribly dry and cracking skin to down right BURNS.

● If you do the same movement you can mess up joints and ligaments. So if you pray constantly you may have knee issues from standing and kneeling.

● If your compulsion has you doing movement against an object ie say gripping and regripping something you get callouses. 

● If you compulsively exercise you may get trapped doing something above a healthy amount or say going from not working out to running a five minute mile and wiping out on a treadmill because your brain demanded it. Totally didnt do that... 

● If your compulsions make you rub against any object you can get friction burns and scars. 

To put this in perspective 15 years of compulsions have left my hands and finger joints a complete mess, damaged my arm tendons, friction scars on my arms that only now faded, and scars on my legs from doing too much of an activity. 

Its not lmao I gotta fix these pencils its real agony and real torture. 

In short compulsions and rituals are not fun they are absolutely not logical, and we know they are not logical but we are forced to do them. Thats why its a disorder. 

OCD disrupts relationships with social components such as ; 

Obsessively checking in with partner/friend if things are ‘okay’ (this feels horrible to do too fyi like you KNOW things are fine but you cant NOT because the anxiety is SO BAD), 

Relationship OCD is a WHOLE category itself! this ties into sexuality OCD where your obsessive thoughts prey on your sexuality (regardless of your orientation), your relationship, cheating or being disloyal etc.

OCD causes significant withdrawal from others, fears of being a monster, intense guilt over intrusive thoughts, disgust with yourself over the intrusive thoughts sometimes leading to self punishment. 

OCD leads to strange behavior which more often than not leads to bullying and ostracization. To exemplify this I have an intrusive thought that I have stolen something when I am inside stores, my check-check-check-check-check-recheck! of my pockets gets me store security called so often its criminal.

OCD limits activities that may expose them to triggers or influenced by intrusive thoughts ie: not being able to take the train to work or only getting off at bus stops with even numbers.

OCD impacts where they spend time, who they associate with, what jobs they take or even if they have a family or not

OCD leads to overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame, and fear over having intrusive thoughts or images that they experience which causes them to socially isolate or have difficulty in social situations. 

OCD leads to Hyperfixation: like a lot of other things but thankfully it is just hyperfixation and not different from other diagnoses. 

OCD leads to rigidity or structured routines: I have listened to the same CD in my car for 5 years now. Every single day. 5 Years.And Im not okay with that. 

OCD impacts standards we hold ourselves to and others: its like regular perfectionism but like add on 5 extra layers of anxiety! 

OCD according to NIMH statistics 

1.2% Occurrence among US adults 

2.3% Lifetime Prevalence among US adults 

34.8% Of Adults who have OCD suffer moderate impairment to daily functioning 50.6% of Adults who have OCD suffer serious impairment to daily functioning

OCD has strong co-morbidity with the following:

Tourettes Syndrome- is a genetic friend of OCD and if you have tourettes or OCD your chances of having someone else in the family is high

ADHD

Autism 

GAD

Eating Disorders

Depression - this is a big one along with low self esteem because of the intrusive thoughts

Writers like to make jokes about characters “being OCD” well now they have clinical OCD and you should consider fleshing out your character with this information just as you would any other disorder.

Batman (DC)

Riddler (?)(DC)

Domino (Marvel)

 Cyclops (Marvel)

[littlebabycrybtch]

anyways, autistic adult here going out to all the autism parents out there;;; stop fucking bragging about abusing your autistic kids. i lived through my autistic childhood, you havent, you need to hear me out. stop posting your horrible ‘inspirational stories’ about how happy you are that you ‘pushed through’ and did something awful and distressing to your child in an effort to make them normal. it is so harmful and so disgusting for autistic people to have to hear about. those stories make me wanna gag. they give me physical discomfort, the way these people are so... Proud of themselves, for thinking they are ‘eradicating’ these evil autism symptoms, like the symptoms arent just an inherent fucking PART of their child they destroyed out of blind ignorant ‘care’. fucking listen to yourself. you did not help them. i dont care that they learned some new (usually unnecessary and performative) neurotypical skill you had been pushing on them for years. i dont care how fuzzy inside that makes you feel. i dont care about whatever you come up with that proves their ‘progress’. no. you were projecting your frustrations. you were pressuring them into smth they didnt need. you didnt Fucking help them. you made them Conform. you Hurt them to make them act like everyone else, bc you let yourself become that convinced that their autism is whats damaging them, and not the outside world that tries to dismantle what they are on the daily, for no fucking REASON besides irrationally projecting your own standards and ideals onto them. the ‘cure’ for autism is not ‘acting normal’, for gods sake. you Punished them for being autistic instead of accepting it and accommodating them. frankly, no matter your real intention, its selfish.

like. im sorry but im livid, i am TIRED of seeing this kind of shit encouraged everywhere. forcing your kid into meltdowns unless it is a 110% safety concern, is abuse and disability discrimination, especially when you are trying to force them to be ‘normal’ by punishing them in these awful prejudiced ways until they meet YOUR idealized standards of functioning and ‘quality of life’, which is self centered for gods sake! like! nah man actually im totally fine with some of my symptoms if you people would just leave me the fuck alone about it??? i like stimming, i like special interests, my ‘sensory issues’ can become blissful when i find the right sensory experience, my struggle to communicate has given me so many beautiful Alternatives and connected me with so many people. im fucking fine, i dont always need to bend to you, you can bend to me sometimes, okay? like. smh, neurotypicals/abled people, society revolves around you, sure, but that doesnt mean someone being Different from you makes them the wrong or unhealthy one... they can be Perfectly happy even though they dont live the way you do, and to think otherwise is again, just really self centered. why are you the default? why is YOUR HAPPINESS with YOUR LIFE the default standard??? someone being different from you doesnt always mean their existence automatically Pains them, or that its Lesser or Worse. accommodation and understanding does a hell of a lot better for somebody than trying to just force them to act how you do under the ignorant assumption that it Must be inherently better for them and their existence. “but- things would be easier for them if they were normal right! thats just how the world is!” cool. but they arent. listen to me. They Arent. just fucking accept that, and focus on fixing the obviously bigger issue, the whole ‘WORLD’ part that rejects everything abnormal, jesus christ. like honestly, thats the worst part about being ‘abnormal’, how the outside world fucking treats you. its how they wont fucking let you exist and wont get off their ass to try and understand or support you, without conditions that include ‘copy me as best as you can so its easier for me’. the worst part is that the people who ‘support’ you view that support as wittling you into something less difficult for them to ‘help’ at the expense of your fucking basic comforts or happiness, and they still think theyre doing you a noble favor by making you like themselves. ffs. guys. stop abusing your kids. stop.

“well guys, my autistic kid wouldnt stop pissing themselves so i just stopped buying diapers and made them sit on the toilet for 6 hours, and guess what, they use the toilet the Right way now! :)” “my kid wouldnt hug me or say i love you, so i held them down on the bed till they stopped fighting my affection! now we hug all the time!” “i took away my childs favorite item until they were able to verbally ask for it back. now they know how to say “please”. they must be SO much happier!” i need for you to listen to me right now. you are not fixing them. you are not HELPING THEM. you are breaking them into your neurotypical life like a pair of fucking tennis shoes. its for you. you are conditioning them, with trauma. the fact that you dont see that is a Disturbing display of how little you actually are trying to understand about your child’s life, or frankly anybody elses experiences besides yours. Leave them the fuck alone. you really wanna help your autistic kid fit into the world? dont punish them for stimming, tell ppl in public to stop fucking staring, bc it is their fucking problem. dont force your type of affection or communication, pay some fuckin attention and you’ll start noticing the ways in which THEY communicate with you, which is just as fine. and for the love of god my dude! buy diapers! they exist for a reason! just buy your fucking child their fucking diapers. ill kick your ass oh my God, 

[macklives]

hi. so..... its been a while huh? feels kinda weird making a message on here, after what??? a month of not posting at fucking all??

and idk how to say that im sorry for taking so long, especially with kallie kinda sticking with me pretty much the whole time i was away. so we both kinda went AFK on everybody. and by god, this has also been the longest gap between updates. so yeah... i feel you all are owed an explanation. 

id like to give a short summary of what went down in my life recently. not so much as an excuse for my disappearance, but bearing in mind, i can't just come back suddenly without a notice as to why it took so long, and then start discussing homestuck theories as if nothing happened, that would be ...weird and off putting. im known as one to talk a lot in a post, so i think its expected. buckle up kiddos, this may be a long one, which you dont have to necessarily read, but im simply putting it out there for you all in case any of you may have been worried or confused. 

ALSO, keep in mind im alright with sharing this information because i needed some time to get over it in order to accept it, and being able to say this stuff means im pretty much ready to move on and go back to what it was like before (which for someone who has trouble focussing, can get quite fucking hard). so here's the last few months in a nutshell:

i got my wisdom teeth pulled so i was both in pain and numb for a week and a half after being drugged up with, idk, the IV they use to knock you tf out and that needle to numb your teeth?? and having those bad boys outta my mouth so that was a fun time. fuck that shit.

uhhh on the more upsetting side of things, a friend of mine recently passed away, but i took some time to recover from that. i didnt want to bum everybody out by liveblogging while in that state, nor did i feel like it was right to make jokes at that time (for obvious reasons) so i took some time off. and while i do still care for that person, after a while you have to come to terms that your life can't evolve around grief, and you have to move on eventually. its been a month and im doing way better than i was in the first week. so you dont have to worry really.. i even heard about the messages friends wrote on discord and let me tell you that i appreciate every response, i love all of them, i love all of you guys, but if any of you worry about me as of today, just know im doing perfectly fine and thats behind me now. so yeah, thats the worst of the news..

on less distressing matters, i changed up my job! i used to be a waitress at a restaurant to get that not so mucho money cash flowing, and now i got a full time placement as an intern (sort of full-time. full-time with student conditions). which in hindsight, to some may not sound like its any helpful, but considering im in my final year of college and i have to explore new places to get experience, id rather go where its needed so i reach that specific goal in mind. and you have to start somewhere, so this is where ill start heading. though i do still have to graduate which will take a lot of stress out of me eventually but it hasnt yet caught up lol... yikes to when that fuse blows in the future. 

and finally, the most frustrating part of the month, idk who it was specifically, the company or the landlord, but eh details arent that important, anyways, the landlord and/or its agency messed up with our rental situation and lost a lot of our info so i had to spend a lot of time trying to get that back while also filling out tax returns bc those were finally put out. so yeah, we kinda just have to wait for a notice, though i personally think everything will be fine. we’re considering moving out eventually, but thats probably gonna have to wait a bit longer. while we’re still angry, the landlord respected that it was out of line and apologised while making it up to us, so that was fair enough.

so YEAH, you can pretty much say its been one hell of a fucking month, and i had barely any time to liveblog let alone be in contact with friends that i kinda missed so fucking much????... i basically didnt want to bring anybody down with me (emotionally or mentally), so i decided to at least give you all a warning that i wouldnt be on for a while, hence the last update a few weeks prior, and to take a break for myself to figure out my situation, to rest, and to try and get healthier despite that wisdom fuck week, which nobody warned me wisdom teeth removals were ABSOLUTE HELL

but... im glad to be back, im not sure ill get back into the rhythm of how things used to be, meaning, posting almost every day....that would have to wait a bit unfortunately. however, i think it would be best if i made a sort of schedule for myself. maybe a liveblog twice a week, starting the next. it would help out a lot. i hope to start off with that at least, and not push myself too hard for hours anymore nor the stress of needing to post daily. i loved it, dont get me wrong, but sometimes it took a lot out of me since i know it takes a lot of my time. that being said, i will be on discord, maybe tomorrow? and probably be more active on there from now on, since everything is sorta cleared in my life and there's no more hectic commotion 24/7. the only thing at this rate stopping me from being active is having family over in the next couple weeks. but otherwise, yeah, its good to be back and im again sorry for my absence once more.

yours, 

mackenzie <33

[nahalism]

Any suggestions on how to remove a mask? How do you know you're supposed to?

i assume u mean a social mask? [ill try 2 b concise but apologies in advance 4 the essay]

i personally dont think its something u should feel obliged to do. you’ll either feel comfortable doing it or you wont, & once u do feel that sense of comfort/security in doing so, you wont have to overthink how to remove the mask, because the behaviourism's that are concurrent with your ‘true’ self will emerge instinctively. 

however, if this is something you want to do because your tired of pretending then id suggest that you start by looking inward. look inward with the intention of understanding (not changing) who you are, or if its easier by questioning who/what you arent. be frank with yourself, but accepting, and begin to get a clear picture of the things you do and dont like, the ways you do/dont like to be treated, how you like to be listened too, interacted with, ectect. in my experience, beginning to form compassion and respect for all aspects of yourself (particularly those you consider ‘ugly’ or ‘bad’) will make you less likely to abandon yourself in exchange for a performance thats designed to be more palatable/acceptable to other people. in taking steps to befriend yourself and respect your own right to exist, you will eventually begin to set boundaries (not barriers) that influence how people treat you because you will emanate a sense of self that sets the tone for not only how you want to be treated, but the treatment you refuse to accept (opposed to someone who lacks a sense of self and will therefore accept any treatment they are subjected too). 

by setting boundaries, i dont mean being detached or avoidant toward others, but rather opening channels of connection by asserting your preferences as an individual. its possible that your preferences may make you unpopular, or different and thus unlikable. but be open to being alone. i assure you that eventually you will attract your tribe, and that there will be people who embrace your differences (cause in reality its the ways that we are different that exalt us and set us apart by making us unique & in that special). [teal swan does really good workshops on this on youtube .. search her name and boundaries lol]. 

side note: i find that people who wear such masks (including myself) begin doing so subconsciously. usually as means to protect themselves from external factors (e.g someone continually disregarding their boundaries/ sense of self, or the feeling that they have been neglected) to such an extent that it becomes highly distressing or evokes a sense of inner, and sometimes outer, lack of security. its also something the individual usually feels powerless 2 change. sometimes, were so accustomed to those triggers that we arent even aware of what they are till they begin to probe deeper, and so we run off emotion our body is processing, but our mind has numbed itself too. i say that not to sound patronising (im sure u kno more about urself than i can assume from an ask) but because its very important to be patient and kind to yourself during this process. a lot of feelings will arise and its easy 2 get frustrated with yourself or even others whilst they do. but what your doing is effectively re-wiring your brain and body chemistry. so furstlyyy. remember that at each and every stage u deserve to be treated and treat yourself with kindness and compassion. most importantly even your most irrational feelings are valid and should be considered with sensitivity. secondly. allow yourself the time to get comfortable with these changes. if you feel the need to retreat and take a break, its better to do that than overwhelm yourself and regress. wearing this mask doesnt make u weak or morally/ethically less of a person. there is no state of perfection to reach, you are fine as you are. this journey is for you, & not to make you a product fit for the consumption of others.

sending you love xx

[vulture-jack]

I always feel like my response to trauma is like. too lukewarm for other people to take seriously? like idk how to explain it. 

Talking about trauma and death under the cut

I have SYMPTOMS of ptsd but I dont have ENOUGH symptoms. Or my symptoms arent strong enough.  

I had recurring nightmares about the event and sometimes still do but not as often. I don’t experience flashbacks or panic attacks or intense reactions to things I associate with my trauma. Just mild distress and discomfort. I never feel as if the event is reoccurring (its kind of impossible because it was the death of a specific person but I do often fear that someone I care about might die or is in danger) 

I have emotional numbness. 

I am extremely protective though. Like. at once I have a hard time getting close to people especially if i perceive that person as vulnerable and that I might potentially lose them. My brain shuts off emotion when I experience new trauma and doesn’t let me feel it. I feel like every death I experienced after my moms made me more and more numb and reinforced the the reaction of shutting off emotion as like. A survival tactic.  

I feel like I’m always preparing to lose people and unsure whether this time is just going to make me even more numb, or finally break me to pieces. I’m scared of breaking to pieces.  I’m scared of becoming more numb. Loving people feels dangerous. Life has only proven to my mind that it is. I didn’t cry when my nana woke me up to tell me that she thought my grandfather was dead. I just calmly checked, confirmed he had died, and told her to sit down while I called 911. I didn’t cry until the funeral. And I cried mostly because people I cared about were sad. 

Sometimes I forget my mom died. sometimes this manifests as forgetting that she is dead, and sometimes its struggling to remind myself that she even existed in the first place. my brain doesnt want to think about it. Its too much. That really happened? how could that happen? thats so terrible. How could that have happened to me. Its impossible. 

Seeing people who are very sick with cancer distresses me a lot. I don’t experience flashbacks or intense attacks that people can see from the outside. But seeing a frail person with no hair in a hospital gown, especially if its a woman, is really the most...like. Obviously distressing thing. 

Ive always been jumpy about phone calls but now every time im at lest a little prepared for it to be “someone died”. Like I’m waiting to hear my grandmother start sobbing and tell me that my father or sister died. 

Most of this is internal.  Like. I think mostly people just notice that I’m over protective and it probably comes across as annoying. Be careful, wear your seat belt, dad get away from that ledge you can admire the waterfall from back here, did you go to the doctor this year, text me and let me know youre ok, etc. 

Often my brain interprets laughter as hysterical sobbing.  Ill hear a thump and jump out of bed and run halfway downstairs to make sure my grandmother didnt fall like that one time she fell down the stairs and broke her leg. 

Since the numbness set in ive made very few friends and even fewer close friends. (About one in the last 5 or 6 years) and those friends absolutely have to approach me and make themselves a part of my life. And even still I dont feel the fullness in my heart that I used to. Loving people is scary and dangerous and I’m just...waiting to lose one of them. 

It sounds dorky as fuck but like. Idk how to love again. Idk how to live again. Idk how to properly balance knowing that life CAN hurt me without wearing heavy armor. I’m scared that when I do feel again its all gonna hit me like a freight train and im gonna crash and burn harder than ever. its just. a lot. i cant really afford a therapist rn either. everything is just. difficult. I’m functioning just enough to seem lazy.  I seem fine but I’m only barely ok. Like my stability is built on toothpicks and bubblegum but to everyone else all they see is that im stable. 

[magical-agatha]

had a weird day today. was very anxious and distressed, very breakdown-y. and i had a session with my psych that was frustrating and upsetting. i did a lot of crying today. but my gf was rly sweet and she told me she was impressed by how hard i try and she told me im strong. which was rly nice. i have to thank her again tomorrow. and my psych coincidentally said something similar. but it hurt when they said those things. mostly when my psych said it and a little when my gf did. i dont feel happy about being strong or working hard to get better. i never feel strong, and the rewards arent always much, and as soon as i make progress i have to start working on something else. and im doing all of this while im physically isolated and living with my abuser. its hard and its painful and i dont want to work hard all the time and be strong. i shouldnt have to. if my mother and various other sources of abuse/trauma/etc hadnt messed me up i wouldnt have such a hard time living. i want to be happy and soft and safe. when they praised me for being strong it just made me think 'why do i have to be strong'.

but i know that they mean 'life is really cruel to you, you're doing a great job despite that and im really proud of you, keep going! you can do it!' and that makes it hurt less.

my life has been full to the brim with pain, i could tell you a lot of sad stories about it but ill save the energy. on a side note, sometimes i mention stuff about my life thats been like, normal i guess, and they remark its fucked up, and i realise this thing thats normal is actually rly fucked up. that doesnt happen much anymore im pretty clued in now.

anyway. a lot of bad things have happened to me and im not going to waste energy listing them all, but im able to keep working hard to climb out of this hole bc i have the love and support of my girlfriend lifting me up. and because i know that one day life will be good. i will be living with my gf, ill have a job i like, enough money to live comfortably, a house that has what we need and is comfy and neat, and we'll adopt cats and walk our dogs every day together. and we'll kiss constantly. life will be undeniably good.

[sheencko]

mr. moreau

an unfinished scrap of a novel i am not sure ill continue

i can see it its a diamond with the crossroads its white borders from my cracked window up here

i ‘ave to get that fixed)—  just below the fog (the fog is low today)

—and its on top of the street that was just painted

oh yesterday or maybe the day before that

or something,

i think

black as my genevieve’s ‘air

two bodies crisscrossed atop of each other and splattered like paint on a black canvas, a pollack of angry reds and i cant see their face cause theyve been ravaged by the hard concrete and im so high up looking down like a dreamer into a field of rye and i shudder because oh, how painful is that but i also suppose,

when youre fallin i guess you only feel the woosh of the wind under you and maybe your soul leaves your body before your body breaks into a million teeny tiny pieces and everything inside you that youve ever dreamed flows out of you like a bucket tipping over onto a tile floor—maybe

maybe its a perpetual fear and youre trapped inside a perpetual cycle of mind numbing terror because youre falling to your doom and you regret that your feet left the edge in the first place and maybe, maybe you shoulda called your mom and then told her that you loved her one last time or apologized to the man that you bumped into while you were hurrying home yesterday and the tears are flying from your face ‘cause you can see them surrounding your grave wearin nothing but black and your father is silent but a kind of silent youve never seen before and in that second you can just SEE him taking the same path you are and then

maybe the fear grips your limbs like god coming down and punishing you but all you feel is a childish sort of aversion an “i dont wanna” cause you dont wanna—you dont wanna die cause you have so so much to live for and youre cryin to some big fat man up in the sky but whats he gonna do? he cant stop you

but i wouldn’ know but i took the elevator and went down to look at the scene anyway cause we’re all drawn to the misfortune of others anyway like nothing more than moths having an orgy on a blue flame

mr. steinway was next to me in the elevator; he lived on the 13th floor and i on the 12th i saw him smoking up on the roof sometimes. he was a gentleman by any other name, except the part where his wife left him cause hed been caught with a particularly young mistress but i suppose that didnt matter because he played ravel’s jeux d’eau like no one else in the world could and maybe he played her body like that homonymous six figure grand he has, who knows

his face was wrinkled and ugly but the melodies he played were smooth and beautiful so who cared about his damn visage i guess

“oh, mister moreau,” and for that matter, his voice wasnt particularly musical either

“steinway, are you heading down to see what happened?”

“arent we all,” he chuckled like the deaths were a funny little joke he had made up,

“i think i’ll stop by the grocery store”

“is that so?” he spoke like a conductor introducing a symphony to an ignorant audience and he was just trying to find a way to relive his days of performing inside carnegie hall’s stern auditorium because all he performed in now was his empty apartment, we around ‘im the unwilling listeners. he silently watched the floor numbers count down on the bar above the elevator doors 10 9 8 7 “i ‘aven’t been there lately.” he finally said like he had wondered how to talk without being offensive while still showing his pockets were full of gold.

dick, i thought 4 5

and waited and 2 1 and the doors opened.

our doorman greeted us. he was a fine fellow and i talked with him when it was too awkward for silence. he had a prized son about to head off to columbia on some scholarship or another and his younger daughter was expected to follow in his shoes. his mother was bedridden his dad dead and apparently he made a great deal of money working as a valet for the most expensive hotel in the city on the weekends. he liked the color orange and his ties were sometimes tied with a different knot because his daughter liked to practice on him. for lunch he preferred a simple tomato and mozzarella panini from the cafe a few blocks away but occasionally he partook in the pita bread and hummus that mrs. tomadakis on the fourth floor gave him and he always always despised it when someone moved the rug in front of the door. i didnt know his name.

“another suicide, huh?” he gave me a warm smile and mr. steinway a slightly cooler one

he said ‘another’ because it had been the eighth one this month and we were only fourteen days into it and silently, slowly we found ourselves heading towards a point of numb disassociation—when one person committed suicide it was all over the news like mr. steinway’s scandal and you learned their birthday, their name, their age,

every tiny detail of they had been, the sorrow of their friends and family,

and everything that happened between the day that they they came into the world and the day they left

and the people reacted with horror, the parents apologized to their kids and the kids to their parents, and the grief counselors opened their doors to those who had lost someone in a similar fashion and had to relive the memory through someone else’s eyes and maybe a wide-eyed girl holdin the blade to her small wrist told herself not today, not today

but of course, thats me being optimistic

sometime after the third suicide all that popped up was a name and a vague somethingorother reason they lit themselves on fire or shot themselves in the ‘ead or something and then a frown from the casters, maybe a tinge of sympathy entered their tone but then 10 seconds passed and they forgot because this was all part of a trend that would end. the people talked about the suicides in hushed tones but now the conservations were turning into a more questioning again? and a response of yeses and then it tended to be never discussed again because hey it didnt involve us anyhow

so the nameless bodies started to pile up one on top of each other and i knew the faces and names of maybe three or four but no more.

i nodded to him. “troubling,” i said, because what else could i say

“yes, definitely. my wife had me turn off the news last night because she was so… distressed at all the incidents lately” the doorman replied and there was a hint of something unknown when he said it. nonetheless he turned to the man next to me because his priorities were his own “I heard your playing the other day, mr. steinway. marvelous as always,” he said, voice turned slick because steinway gave good tips. he couldn’t hear anything from all the way on the 1st floor of course

mr. steinway looked chuffed, a prizewinning cock who fought with all the other roosters. “the debussy or the khachaturian?”

“the khachaturian, of course. i always find myself partial to the contemporary—“ the doorman said in an inviting tone to begin an conversation that would undoubtedly net him a few more dollars or maybe a lot more next week—

“interesting!” steinway murmured in that hushed tone since discussion of classical music was clearly some covert operation that no one was supposed to know about. i walked outside into the cool fall air knowing that they would be stuck there for a good ten minutes or more and noticed that the crowd around the two corpses in the middle was gone already and the first thing i wondered was not who they were but rather if dear genevieve had heard the news

there is a photographer standing by the bodies with her big old camera snap snap and she looks up and stares at me staring at her she stands up and i notice that the bottom of her pants have been scuffed by the road she smiles at me without dusting herself off,

“hello!” she was too cheery for the death in front of her “do you live here?” she is the only one out here and the world feels strangely empty

“yes, i” i pointed to the clean, modern building to the left “live just over there,”

she looked at me up and down up and down “you wouldn’t know these people would you?” no i wouldnt

“no” her face fell but then it rose again as she stuffed a card into my clammy hand and the bracelets on her hand jangled and she grinned at me with white teeth but the front two were crooked as if someone ‘ad taken a pair of pliers to them and her brown ‘air was messy, her skin lighter than mine—“i was just wondering since no one seems to know who they are” (she spoke in a rush like she was breathless) and i finally start to wonder indeed, who they are because even as corpses their hands are entwined together “i’m” and now that im down here i can see the fine details in their “photographer, i” faces and the one on the left has that dead fish look in their dark eyes and the eyes are wide open and theyre staring into “crime scenes” my very soul and i wonder if theyre blaming me for my being complicit in their deaths because i too heard the news and did nothing but “ive been in the news” my hands are shaking and i think i couldnt have done anything because i didnt know but something jabs me — a maybe i did know because i too heard the news and passed by disinterested “but i also do” and im staring back at them and theyre staring back at me in a staring contest that i know i will lose “family portraits, anything you need basically” and the one on the rights eyes are closed and the part of their face that isnt all burst open and spilling onto the floor has a tender charm and their lips are fixed in what seems like a peaceful smile but im thinking no there is no way that could be peaceful and oh “call the number if” their ‘ands are all so small if i could just have grabbed those before they jumped maybe id be staring at an empty black canvas instead of a grotesque exhibit of all that we ‘ave done wrong

work title:

artist:

medium: human on concrete

[everythingmustgo]

heyO i was wonderin if i could do a tarrot reading and an analysis? if not its fine! but my signs are cancer sun, libra moon, leo rising, mercury cancer, venus virgo, mars leo, jupiter cancer, n saturn gemini! thank u in advance!

hello hello ofc u can !!! my tarot readings r £2 per card used so if u wanna have a look at my tarot page nd pick the spread u want then go for it!!! ill do ya analysis just now !okay so cancer suns r honestly my FAVS like my gf is a cancer nd shes so sweet nd caring, cancer suns want to protect u, theyre very maternal in their loving? very nurturing, they show their love thru looking after u and making sure ur okay. sooooooo emotional, all u water signs r crybabies tbh, ur emotions rly do dictate ur life and ur not in control of them so much as they r in control of u. the kind of ppl that cry from every emotion cuz they feel so deeply. the thing abt cancers tho is even tho theyre loving and caring, theyre always looking out for no. 1. big on self preservation, if they had the option to save u or them, theyd save their damn self no question. if a cancer if upset, anyone elses feelings go out the window. if u nd a cancer r upset, u can bet ur ass the cancer’s feelings come first. this is bc of how strong their feelings r for sure, they just dont have room in them for negative feelings that arent. theres ukno. they need so much emotional support, as caring as they r they struggle a lot with insecurity and need constant reassurance. often the only constant thing in their life is their own emotional turmoil, and they have a tendency to wallow in it and expect others to make it better. this is honestly one of the only bad qualities in cancers imo like I love water signs nd they rly r the most sweet nd caring ppl, they just have Issues nd r fiercely protective of themselves. cancer/libra is a good combo imo!!! libra moons r very diplomatic, have an innate sense of justice and a deep need for peace and harmony. bc this is ur moon sign this would suggest that this is ur strongest desire, this is rly what drives all of ur actions. ur a peacekeeper, u settle arguments nd everyone immediately seems to like u bc of the knack u have to see all sides of an argument. bc of this ur not strongly opinionated, u have principles but ur always open to persuasion and generally look for a balance between two options. big on equality, ur middle ground attitude to arguments can sometimes b mistaken for weakness of opinion but ur driven more by the need for fairness which is v strong in u. bc this is ur moon sign this is the part of u that cannot b suppressed: ppl will always see ur moon sign, nd while u have a certain amount of choice over how much of ur sun sign self u express (ur core personality, often one u grow into nd recognise within urself as u get older), ur moon sign cannot b hidden. ppl will always recognise ur balanced and fair nature, nd honestly for a libra moon this is a great thing bc ppl generally Love libras bc of this !!! they r fair nd will never immediately write off anyones opinions as invalid, somehow finding a way to agree with everyone. plus as an air sign u have great communication skills nd ppl will feel v comfortable talking to u. they have a veeeeeery strong need to b liked tho, which often drives their agreement w everyone. they need a thriving social life and to be in a relationship, most libras feel v lost w/o a partner. theyre romantics at heart, ruled by venus, but also feel they need a strong person in their life to make their decisions for them. this is the libra downfall, they r. wishy washy ppl. sometimes u NEED strong opinions? like even if u desire fairness, nd r immediately uncomfortable when fairness in a situation becomes almost impossible to achieve, there r times when u need to have a strong opinions? the idea of holding an opinion that some people will object to is stressful for a libra. this means ur one of the most indecisive, vague and easily influenced signs and u need to think for urself more!!! libras r all too dependant on others and see the route to peace and inner balance as pleasing everyone, which isnt always the case. u need to take urself and ur own feelings into consideration, be independent. as this is ur moon sign, ur approach to emotions is heavily ruled by ur libra. u keep things to urself as u dont like to distress others w ur emotions or hav them think differently of u bc of it, u see the solution to ur problems as to deal w them urself and problem solve ur way out of it, and while this is a skill of urs and u will most likely come up w good solutions, its not healthy to take it all on urself. I do love libras tbh but. they can b fake as hell w their niceness. u need to let urself open up more nd realise theres more to life than being liked, nd peace can b achieved w/o pleasing everyone, and w doing things for urself. ok ok I rly went to town on ya moon there so ill try nd keep ya rising short, so ur a leo rising which is v different from ur sun nd moon !!! all of ur signs r different elements which suggests ur v well rounded nd have a lot of different aspects to ur personality!!! ur leo rising means that the way u express urself and how others perceive u is far more dramatic than ur sun and moon, honestly u like to b seen as Extra. v focused on ur appearance, sociable and outgoing, loooooves to b the centre of attention. this im thinking is the strongest of ur signs nd fits very well w ur libra and cancer, who hav more vulnerability when it comes to others. leos have a lot of charm and likeability from the confidence they exude, which can likely be a protection for your libra fears of being disliked, and your highly emotional cancer sun. leos are also incredibly loyal and generous, a leo friend will absolutely spoil u and think nothing of spending lots of money on u (theyre v materialistic so often buying things for u is how they express affection). however they do often keep others in their shadow bc they like the attention so much, so its possible that until others get to know u very well, they will feel intimidated by u. u like to express urself dramatically and perhaps as opinionated in an attempt to hide ur libra indecisiveness and dependence on others to make ur decisions, which ur cancer sun will make u feel v insecure abt !!! theres a lot of interlinking insecurity between the signs with u lmao they work well together but theres certainly a lot going on. when ppl meet u, theyll hear abt ur social status and ur charm, but then discover ur sense of fairness and need for peace and equality, as well as ur emotional, nurturing side as they get closer to u.im gonna do a v brief explanation of ur planets if thats okay but if u want more info u can 100% ask for it its okay!!!so bc ur mercury is the same as ur sun sign its likely ur thought process, mental abilities and communication skills r v close to ur core personality and the way u think is an important part of who u r. bc its in cancer its gonna b emotional: ur mentality r hiiiighly emotion driven, and its hard for u not to let ur feelings get in the way of ur thought process and capacity for ideas and planning. ur 100% an overthinker, nd even tho u care for others deeply, ur plans will always result in u reaping the most benefits. ur venus virgo means ur a lover of beauty and a big romantic imo, but also a perfectionist. ur attracted to people u can fix up, which is a big downfall of virgos. they like to fix things, esp ppl, ESP in venus wow. u may notice a pattern of friends nd partners who rely on u to Fix Them, u may notice u r drawn to ppl w Issues bc u want to help them get better. ur a big worrier when it comes to relationships. leo mars wow this is the realm of action and u GO for it. everything u do u do 110% nd u wanna make a big show of it. u wanna b seen as an achiever, someone whos doing great things in life nd lookin hot while doing it. u want appreciation and attention for doing it. p much all of ur actions r to b noticed nd appreciated for what u do, its a big motive. ur in it for u. jupiter jupiter realm o wisdom nd knowledge, cancer again so id reckon important to u. mercury nd jupiter often go hand in hand so its fitting they r the same. again, emotional, again, caring, again, selfish. u have a deep understanding of ur own and others feelings, ur v intuitive nd use ur feelings to help u understand the world around u. ur feelings influence how u learn, if u dont love smth ur not gon learn it. cancer is ruled by the moon, id say ur v wise and trustworthy. saturn is jupiters restrictive counterpart, all abt boundaries nd structure. as its in gemini I reckon ur a fast learner nd once u learn ur lesson u will never forget. u like to scheme and plan, ur intelligent nd sociable but the way u plan ur life may distress u. u may often b highly conflicted over how u structure ur life, part of u loving the control of routine and part of u loving the freedom of no structure whatsoever.hope this made sense !!! u got any more questions let me kno, hmu when uve decided what spread u want for ur reading 💕

[unproduciblesmackdown]

s2g that moss has even been foreshadowing that lars was gonna get briefly killed like…not that specific but since we’re shown that the moss is lars and the flowers have a bit of gem in them…………

ppl are always weird about stuff everywhere smh but like…theres been obviously weird things like being way more ok with ancient beings ready to destroy all life on the planet than lars being too ill-tempered or doing something selfish like…i see that…. like lars doesnt need to be redeemed for anything jeez. every episode where he does something crap its on a minor scale vs like endangering lives or something and he gets k.o’d for it and then makes some sincere form of apology like? theres your redemption…i guess maybe people expect him to become acceptable overnight maybe but thats how people work and then every episode is like The Lesson of the Week instead of a closer look at a character and another step in their development as people figuring themselves out

like literally every character has issues smh! in like this and everything also but like….honestly lars has been a super self conscious and anxious teen from the start and really unhappy and like sometimes he does dumbass shit but who hasnt. if you think youve never hurt people you havent been paying close enough attention

anyways one of the things i really dont like? despite general overall stuff like teenaged lars momentarily losing his patience and realizing he’s in the wrong and immediately trying to make amends = him being judged more harshly than like….every millenia-old actually murderous actual antagonist introduced…. is that overall? its like really really clear really early on that he’s always struggling with a lot of mental health issues, and a common theme is irl people who really do have disorders pointing this out. like, that point can be made for every character in su and lars isnt The Mentally Ill One who alone represents the whole of the universal mental illness experience because obviously that doesnt exist and its a very unique and personal experience, and people dont have to directly relate to lars or any other character with such problems to verify their own. but lars and the cool kids is like super upfront about anxiety and he obv has really low confidence and low self worth and i’ll fight anytime about island adventure hinting strongly at depression—in addition to having him state outright that he feels lonely and isolated all the time. and like, he hates the job he works all the time, he’s not good in school, he and sadie feel an early connection but they obviously had to do a lot of work on that and step on each other’s emotional fingers along the way to finally get to where they are now—which i’m guessing is dating but without acknowledging so or at least not to others, he isn’t very close to his parents currently, he starts the series with 1.5 friends maximum and cant even approach the cool kids besides being desperate to be friends with them

like clearly he’s unhappy and for a while sadie and steven are probably the people closest to him even tho he is a lot more annoyed by steven at the start of things when steven is more little-kiddish than he is now…..but lars still acts mostly like himself around them But at the start him and sadie have too many complications and uncertainties to be really comfortable and again steven doesnt really come across as very mature, with lars pointing it out just now how stevens changed in that way, and it being difficult anyways for lars to confide in anybody

so like lars is and has always been super super defined and restricted by his fear of everybody he encounters, specifically being afraid of being hurt by them / fear of being disliked. i like to say that i think the way he prevents himself / his image is meant to be a way of controlling the reactions he expects people to have: i.e. making people dislike him is less scary/painful than being judged badly while hoping for the opposite. but i also never like saying that anyone who consciously cultivates their Look is faker than someone who doesnt put any thought into it, or is lying to themselves or others or whatever, i just would bet thats a part of it. but moreso than that, the fact that he’s irritable and ill-tempered all the time fits really well as a result of being so unhappy and afraid and trying to deal with it solo. it’s not about him not caring about people, when on an unrelated note but related-to-the-universal-human-experience he does something thoughtless or mean or just generally crosses a line, he notices immediately when someone feels hurt, and he’s shown to immediately feel bad, arguably to a fault and going too far with how guilty he feels. but anyways clearly even though he has the capacity to hurt people’s feelings, he’s very sensitive to that, he cares deeply when it happens, and he doesn’t want to hurt people. like apologizing with any genuine depth to it right off is an incredibly difficult task even for grownass adults, and lars is already really good at it. its wild that people think of him as super cruel and selfish when it’s clear that he’s very emotionally vulnerable and doesn’t have the capacity to callously disregard other people’s hurt feelings

anyways a point i’m taking a really long time to come around to is that lars is a really good example of someone who’s young and unhappy and isolated and really struggling with a lot of things and afraid of everything and the fact is that usually when youre looking for characters who are struggling with this kind of shit you get one-dimensional, maybe even one-episode characters like the person who shows up for the very special episode where everyone has a serious talk and learns a serious lesson and the Depression Character never shows up again, having gone off to be depressed somewhere else since we already know about depressed people. or depression and anxiety is something that can be solved literally overnight if you just confront the root cause, like eliminating the life problem that made x depressed or giving y a makeover or throwing them a surprise party to show them they have friends or something. or you learn that joe the bully is actually just physically violent because he is insecure, whoa man. or the Sad Kid is a running joke and a periphery character and their parents are getting divorced etc etc etc etc

the point is that lars is a main character and even when he learns things about himself that put him in a better place than when the episode began, his issues still don’t vanish (and i wouldnt be surprised if people use that as evidence that his character doesnt “grow”). and dealing with / revealing some of his issues arent a special episode, its just an episode, and its about him. he’s developed over and over and he’s shown to be a complicated person. he’s shown to enjoy things and have interests and a life. he’s a regular character as much as anyone else is, he isnt set aside in a special category

but the thing is that maybe people expect Mentally Ill™ characters to be more of the hamfisted media clichés with zero nuance and about as much accuracy to them? because there’s always the sweet-and-soft kind of person who’s surely dealing with mental illness acceptably because they make up for it by being pure and noble and something approximately like a newborn lamb. like depression is being maybe a bit cagey and avoidant and crying a lot and writing poetry (which will later be revealed as their secret talent!!) and sighing and generally just waiting for someone to approach them, very gently because they are shy and nervous like a fawn, and that savior will cure them with love and also with showing them how beautiful life is!!! and then they will start wearing more colorful clothes and they will be happy and the depression is over now, because someone just had to show their delicate, beautifully wounded soul the light

trauma? you can tell someone has Trauma because they act very stoic and strong 1000% of the time no exceptions but it is just a façade. they will never talk about The Thing. they will finally talk about the thing because someone pries about it with pure intentions and it is a big dramafest and theyve never talked about this before and everyone cries and its super serious and heavy and the person is a bit softer after that because they could finally let it out that one time. thanks, another savior. having disorders is just having turned away from the light

the point is that irl obviously things are very different and its rare to see people with such issues being treated the same as any other character and being able to grow in a realistic way and being able to have flaws the way that everyone else does, not having to be a pure defenseless dewy-eyed baby kitten who someone strong and Normal needs to rescue and put on the right path away from these problems forever. being pissed off and frustrated and confused but trying a lot of different ways to figure things out anyways is a lot more common, the way lars reacts to and deals with his vulnerability is a lot more realistic than just being a fairy-tale in-distress type figure. his character feels a million times more like he was developed by people who understand what its like to be experiencing what he does and developed for people who can relate to him, rather than being made by and for people who cant directly relate and who tend to make content thats wholly inaccurate and treats that kind of thing like an Other issue for Others that you only need to learn bullet points about because if its going to be a part of your life it’ll be a fleeting, one-time thing, not your everyday reality

i mean, its unsurprising that lars is actually pretty comfortable with steven now, given how long theyve known each other, but also how relentless steven is in being supportive of lars and treating him like a friend. its not surprising that it took lars this long to accept that, or that it was in part forced along by being stuck in a “we might die” scenario with steven. and its important to point out that this wasn’t just lars changing that made their relationship better, but steven growing as a person as well. if you put both if them in that situation during the start of the series, they could probably get along better than usual still, but you cant say that this is the first sign of lars developing any more than you can say this is stevens first development. lars has been struggling with himself just as steven has, although not in a fate-of-the-world way till now. lars couldnt be so conscious of his own fear and frustrated with it, and steven wouldnt have the maturity to do stuff like freakin sacrifice himself for earth by separating himself from the other crystal gems, much less lend lars the emotional support needed to give lars enough confidence to protect the off-colors

lars has been developing the whole time and even if people look at individual episodes and think lars learns nothing during them, i cant see how anyone could deny that this isn’t a turning point for lars as much as its the culmination of a gradual path he’s already been on. not to mention that “turning point” has implications like “redemption arc,” as if lars was inherently bad or worthless at the start of the series. he wasn’t; none of the characters were, but each character and all of their relationships were least developed of course. we see details and different sides of the donuts right away, and they both care enough about steven to treat him more as a little brother than a customer and to humor him sometimes. theyve always been important, and the fact that lars has always been a main character in the set of protagonists and that steven has always been a friend means that he cannot be converted by a “redemption” arc. he’s already there smh he’s always been there. seriously name one episode where he’s done something shitty and didnt do anything to make up for it. the only thing unresolved rn is he couldnt fight topaz for sadie, and he said himself he felt guilty over it, and it was already at that point the boldest thing he’d done and like, its not that unreasonable for a wisp of a teen to be terrified by a giant gem warrior that he had zero chance of doing anything to anyways. it wasnt glistening heroics but if thats gonna condemn lars like throw me in the pit too i guess. then he went and died for twelve individuals and left himself defenseless in hostile unfamiliar territory so that steven can go back to earth so thats something. but before all this alien drama like, again…..he’s always directly apologizing for shit and he’s just making everyday kinds of fuckups. he beats himself up about stuff. and gets beat up. and really like doesnt ever require an apology when he’s the one to get hurt, which isnt a requirement by any means and which is probably part of him thinking too badly of himself

the point? that maybe i still havent made besides saying i was gonna make it like half a dozen times?? is that lars is a really real portrayal of a person dealing with things in a real way. and its not the “pain is transcendent” thing where if someone is Suffering from mental illness it makes them wiser and kinder and holier than us regular people. its not where all you need to help someone with mental illness is one incidence of reaching out and telling them you love them and look at the stars and isnt it lovely. its not where disorders themselves are an arc and at the end, people’s personalities will be indistinguishable from that of those who never experienced what they did. its where dealing with this shit is normal and human and everyday and its not beautiful and its not gonna make other people “inspired” or get to feel good about themselves as your savior. its about pushing people away or having them avoid you anyways because they can hurt you in ways they can’t understand as being hurtful and shits confusing and sometimes kids will lash out and i bet lars was a lot more Difficult closer to stevens age than he is now. its about characteristics that seem ugly or repulsive or otherwise don’t directly cry out for help. its about shit staying with you even while you’re trying to figure out how to work through it. its about the unpleasantness of it all but also the real humanity behind it, not just using it as some device. lars’s problems are about lars and belong to him

and yeah of course he hurts people, but literally all the characters do; it has nothing to do with having disorders or not. everyone hurts each other even though they love each other, sometimes with the best intentions or 0% knowingly because they just have to figure out more things about themselves and each other. everything is about people making mistakes. lars is no worse in that matter than any of the other characters, he just happens to have a less appealing/inviting personality, god forbid less relatable. in the recent episodes he didnt have his usual defensive abrasiveness, even his frustration with steven in “stuck together” wasn’t that significant, and wasnt even much directed at steven. after that he was just scared, without it being masked by anger. he could be brave for the other gems because he knew he wanted to be brave and he knew how it felt for them to be so afraid and he was finally told that it was an okay thing that he still felt terrified. he could be completely himself with steven because of all the ways steven has gotten to know lars and refused to stop valuing him and how steven has grown to be someone who could protect others on his own in serious situations—which in this case included supporting lars emotionally as well as protecting him physically. if lars was dropped in that situation with the kid who just learned to summon his shield and was having an ice cream crisis five minutes ago, he couldnt trust or rely on him or count on him for encouraging advice. the way lars is in the wanted arc being so different from earlier episodes is as much about stevens development as lars’s really

like the real lars is and always has been deeply sensitive to peoples feelings (to the point he feels extremely vulnerable to them e.g. afraid of being hurt by being regarded negatively) and he’s always cared about the people he feels close to and he’s always been capable of moments of bravery for the sake of others and he likes wrestling and he’s good at cooking and he’s a dumbass sometimes and he watches scary movies and plays video games and sucks at school and is grumpy and is passionate and is scared and is a huge nerd with nerd parents and he never got over feeling hurt by the explorer club incident and he doesnt like fries and he and his coworker like each other and relate to each other and he sees steven as his annoying little brother and he doesnt know what he wants and also he’s a bi icon, it must be exhausting

lars has always been good and complex and i might be willing to forgive my slight disappointment in people realizing he’s good only now if and only if they go back and acknowledge that he’s been good this whole time. like obviously he doesn’t have to be your Fave or even “liked” to just be not hated or to be recognized as a complex, solid character. lars is so, so developed, probably more than any other human. he’s always been important, even before his importance had direct cosmic significance. he’s always shown signs of being thoughtful and caring and soft, and the fact that he’s hurt people he cares about and who care about him isnt evidence that he’s bad, not only because of the fact that literally all the Good characters hurt each other, but because irl hurting people you love isnt even necessarily evidence of a failure, its just an inevitability, and what happens following the event is whats a lot more telling than the fact any negative emotions were ever a part of a good relationship

anyways what’s definitely true is that lars didnt need to die. it wasnt a necessary atonement for anything lars has ever done. he didnt and doesnt need to be redeemed. he just was willing to risk his life for gems in a situation he could immediately relate to, and that risk happened to win out momentarily. besides, what lars was overcoming in that situation was his own fear, it wasnt anything that caused the stuff in the past that people seem to think so badly of him for. he was also protecting steven, sure, but steven was pretty much fine by the end of it coz of his shield. but he also hadnt ever really Not protected steven or anything so he didnt really need to make up for that or whatever

also one more thing ive always meant to bring up is that lars doesnt think much of himself and is prone to being too hard on himself but i know there are probably plenty of people who believe him when he says he needs to “deserve” being alive again. nah!!!! lars always deserved it

[tenseiga]

whole bunch of sesshiro headcanons

 @dheerse​‘s beautiful oc whom i love

1. Who's the one who's reckless and always getting into trouble while the other gotta pull em out

i wanna say sessh gets into trouble more than hiro but he can also get himself out of trouble. hiro just kinda shakes his head

2. Who's the one to send the other "I love my gf/bf" memes

it’s hiro. absolutely

3. Who's the one who listens to a music genre the other doesn't like and how does the other react

hiro’s really easygoing and likes most music. maybe sessh is more picky when it comes to what he likes but like. hes fine with it, he wont tell hiro to turn it off. (unless it’s musical showtunes and hiro is singing along)

4. Which one spoils the other more and do they ever get competitive to show the other more love

they dont do that. hiro is maybe more outwardly affectionate but they,.. dont do this.. it seems extra

5. How many years did it take to get married or was it just not for them

do demons get gay married? i feel like marriage isnt a thing sessh cares about

6. What was their wedding like

a small, quiet ceremony. rin is absolutely exstatic, films the whole thing if it’s a modern au. she makes sure there’s flowers everywhere.

7. Is their friends/family supportive

yes. well. sessh’s mom is an asshole and thinks sessh deserves better than one of her guards, but sessh never talks to his mom anyway so it’s fine? all of sessh and hiro’s friends love and support them; if they didn’t they would just cut them out of their lives

8. How does one comfort the other when the other is in distress/having a panic attack/crying

hmmmmm this one is hard. when hiro’s having a hard time he likes physical contact. he likes sessh to be Close to him. when sess is having a bad time he isnt as touchy, he likes reassurance that hiro is There and wiling to listen to whatever he has to say, even if he’s not likely to say anything. he also likes if hiro fills the silence with talking. he doesnt really care when hiro’s talking about, he just likes listening. it keeps his mind off of things that bother him.

9. Which one dissociates

both lmao

10. Which one stares at the other's booty like "damn" and how does the other react when catching them

i mean both but hiro catching sessh looking at him is very Amusing for me to think abt. sessh is zoning out and staring at a butt and hiro turns n laffs a bit then keeps indulgng sessh.

11. When they live together what kinda place do they live in? What does their home look like?

the forest. alternatively, in a modern au they share a sunny basement flat with a dog and rin

12. What do their dates look like

adorable,, cute, the best, a dinner date in a weird german restaurant where there’s fake trees in the room. they’re usually very casual and the first couple of times they go out together it’s hard to tell if it was a date or just a very intense Hang Out

13. How does each act when getting drunk

hiro’s an affectionate cuddly drunk. sessh kind of sits there? he’s having a fun time he’s just Quiet. i mean he’s always quiet but u know. if he’s really feeling comfortable then he lets loose but he’s never like. wild. he wouldnt dance on tables or sing karaoke or anything. that’s more of a hiro thing to do

14. Which one rolls over in the morning to wake up the other one just to give kiss them

this is,, adorable. sesshoumaru

15. Have they saved each other's lives before

oh probably. i mean if not in the Physical saving from Danger sense then at least like. being there emotionally for the other has made them both Better Off because of it. also if it’s the canon verse then they’re Always getting into trouble and have probably had to fight things n shit so. yeah

16. Does one have an interest the other think is weird but wants to listen to it regardless

hiro loves astronomy and babbles on about stars. sessh loves it

17. Which one uses cropped hentai as reaction images

if sessh feels like he Absolutely Needs to, but wont go out of his way to do it

18. Does one of them kinkshame the other

not really? they’re on the same page w kinks and arent into anything too weird

19. Is one of them self conscious about their body? If so how does the other comfort them

i mean sessh gets a lil dysphoric sometimes. hiro is good though he either distracts sessh or tells him he wont look this way forever. sessh appreciates.

20. Say they were cuddling on the bed while listening to record player playing the background. Which song is playing?

god i dont know......  i dont have a good taste in music dont trust me. something easy to listen to, and it’s really quiet. nothing pop. maybe an orchestral piece from a soundtrack?

21. What is their song? Like the song that gives them overwhelming feelings?

uhhhhh. see the above

22. What song do they listen to while going on a joyride

probably something out of the shrek soundrack

23. What kinda joyrides do they go on? Relaxing ones or wild ones?

relaxing mostly? but i dont really see them as having a car for the most part

24. Where would they vacation for a honeymoon

a different part of the forest. maybe the beach. their daughter loves the beach and sessh really likes listening to the waves. good times 

25. Do people ever get annoyed of their pda

what pda

26. Would they live in the city or the country

in the modern au? city. in canon verse there are no cities

27. Which ones the red which ones the blue

neither. sessh is off-white and hiro is kinda dark green

28. Are either of them mentally ill, if so how do they help one another cope

hiro’s got the good ol’ bpd (gotta project somehow.. lmao) n sessh is depressed. idk if autism counts as mental illness? i dont think so? but w/ever thats here now too. it’s hard for me to describe how they help but they do

29. Does one have a spot on them where they would melt when the other kisses them there

sesshoumaru. neck

30. Do they dance together

i wanna say yes but only when theyre V Drunk and hiro does not dance well

31. Do they sing together

nope, sessh will let hiro embarrass himself, but he’ll play no part in it

32. Which one is better at cooking than the other and makes most the dinners

sesshoumaru cannot cook

34. Are they a reckless couple or safe

not sure what this means but they use seatbelts??

35. What be they kinks and do they try each other's kinks

uhhh hiro likes orgasm denial, sessh likes teasing him.

36. What would their valentines gifts be to each other

they dont really do valentines day but sometimes sessh would surprise hiro or vice versa with a nice dinner out

37. Do they get into fights often? If so what do they fight over and how do they make up?

not really, if they do they’re very Little fights that only last like ten minutes. they barely even need to make up bc it was such a little disagreement.

38. Which ones top, bottom, verse

yes. both. both is good

39. What kinda sex they be having (gentle rough whatever)

sometimes they gotta fuck outside against some trees. their first time starts as uhh the most gentle thing that’s ever existed, but then sessh gets impatient and things get Rougher and hiro was Not Expecting that & he’s pleasantly surprised. they have a Lot of diffrent kinds of sex? it’s not fair to say they’d only fuck in one particular way

40. Who would fight in honor for the other if someone would insult them

drunk hiro would fight to defend sessh’s honour. sober sessh would want to stab someone if they insulted hiro. sessh can brush off insults but hiro sometimes takes things personally and they stick with him for a while & bring him down so sessh doesnt want that to happen

41. Which one has a favorite movie that they have the other watch with them again and again

idk brokeback mountain?

42. How would one react if the other was to die

why would u do this to me, just asking. hiro would start crying and Wouldnt stop. like ever. and im copy & pasting my response from the sessnara ask   sesshoumaru would freeze and go very quiet. he would be panicking but he would also be mourning already. like. steeling himself for what is to come. doesnt talk to anyone for days and barely sleeps

43. Who dies first

hi uhh. why would u make me think of this. hiro

44. Do they want kids

they’ve already got a daughter and a kind of son? is kohaku their son? we dont know

45. How would they spend their last moments together

..im assuming this is like. a “they’re about to die” context. they dont need to say anyhting, they understand each other. they’re holding hands or hugging but not kissing. hiro needs to be able to see sessh’s face and he needs to know sessh knows how much he loves him. sessh is trying to memorize everything about hiro so that when he’s reincarnated/in the afterlife he’ll be able to find hiro again