#but usually ppl are super super super shy and then like. i guess they arent when they’re drunk so it’s nice to just chat sometimes

[pansyfemme]

everytime i get a random message or ask from a drunk and suddenly very sappy mutual its like talking to an angel

[getallemeralds]

So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird

[theclash]

Evens

ok here we go!!

2. Are you outgoing or shy?pretty outgoing but I tend to keep to myself by choice in like school and stuff because I usually just dont have the energy

4. Are you easy to get along with?other than like with close friends… probably not. Like I think I’m easy to get along with when it comes to ppl who dont know me but if ur at the point where you know me vaguely but arent a good friend of mine I think I’m kind of abrasive idk

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?I’ve never rly had a type when it comes to girls idk!!! all the girls I’ve been attracted to have all been rly different from eachother

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?lil wayne

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?gf!

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?oh god ummmWorld In My Eyes - Depeche Mode, Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order, Space Age Love Song - Flock Of Seagulls, Don’t Go - Yaz, ALWAYS Wild West Hero - ELO

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?hmmm… sort of?? not in a super Deep way

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?1000000 times

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?no

20. Do you like your neighbors?some of them

22. Where would you like to travel?Italy, Norway, Japan mainly, plus other places of course I just wanna see where my ancestors lived (first 2) and actually use my 5 years of Japanese class for something

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?chilling in bed for hours because thats my life. also coffee

26. What do you do when you wake up?check notifications, text gf (unless its a day I work at like 7am cuz shes usually sleep still)

28. Who are you most comfortable around?Will and Em

30. Do you ever want to get married?some day

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?what the!!!!!!!

34. Do you play sports? What sports?no pensive emoji

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?many times

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?bro do people rlly walk around with a dream image for the person they wish they could be with regardless of whether they rly exist or not

40. What do you want to do after high school?lolllll

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?probably depressed or having a borderline panic attack or something

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?oh god neither

46. What are you paranoid about?losing people, illness, injury, ppl I care about being put in danger whether its due to emotional states or the situation theyre in

48. Have you ever been drunk?no

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?grey

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?less paranoid

54. Favourite store?hi voltage

56. Favourite colour?blue, red, yellow

58. Last thing you ate?english muffin

60. Ever won a competition? For what?won a bid in engineering for a proposal to Boeing about ways to solve the water crisis

62. Been arrested? For what?tax evasion

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?LOOOOOL so Em and I were hanging out before her birthday thing later in the day and we went to the beach, we were just walking around n stuff then sat on a log and she asked if she could kiss me and I was like “yea sure” then she did but I didnt know what to do so it was like 2 seconds long and she was like “that wasnt a real kiss” hgfjkdhg very awkward sorry babe

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?no sry queens and legends

68. Twitter or Tumblr?tungle

70. Names of your bestfriends? Will, Sonny, Em (counting u as a best friend even if you are also my Gf)

72. What colour are your towels?dark grey

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?idk how many are put away but I have one (1) Stuffed Broccoli named Broccobama

76. What colour is your underwear?black

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?tillamook chocolate mudslide

80. What colour pants?none LOL

82. Favourite movie?the wall or yellow submarine

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?mean girls

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?gil or whatever the edgy fish with the scar. Duh

88. Last person you talked to today?texting Em rn but in person, my mom

90. Name a person you love?Em

92. In a fight with someone?the fucking weirdo anon about Joe Strummer I guess but like real talk no

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?like 5? idk

96. Favourite actress?Carrie Fisher :( Marilyn Monroe too

98. Do you tan a lot?no lol

100. How are you feeling?ok I guess

102. Do you regret anything from your past?yes

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?miss people I was once close to but I dont miss anyone who is completely cut from my life

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?probably not

108. What should you be doing?sleeping maybe??? idk

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?yes

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?Em

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?yes

116. Are you listening to music right now?surprisingly no

118. Do you like Chinese food?i dont dislike it but its not a favorite of mine

120. Are you afraid of the dark?honestly sometimes i get on edge 

122. Is cheating ever okay?no.

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?not really

126. Are you currently bored?sorta

128. Would you change your name?I wanna change it legally yeah

130. Do you like subway?yea

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?it already asked this LOL Em

134. Can you count to one million?I sure hope so?

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?closed and only closed

138. Curly or Straight hair?curly

140. Summer or Winter?summer

142. Favourite month?August

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?Dark

146. Was today a good day?6 out of 10

148. What’s your favourite quote?“It’s Gucci time” - Dee Dee Ramone/Dee Dee King

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page? 42 is just a picture of MCA and 43 says “Adam served as a great example for myself and for so much of what determination, faith, focus, and humility coupled with a sense of humor can accomplish”

[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

[moidse]

Okay so, I need to open up about a few things... and its been difficult to find the words. It really resonated with me the other week when you said you just don't want to disappoint me when it comes to sex, i really felt that and wanted to make you feel like i do not see you as a disappointment because i don't-- but it is complicated because i am disappointed that we aren't as sexually compatible as I'd hope-- but i this is something that is outside of either of our control and so i hate to think you are mentally punishing yourself for something that just is. I think thats why this is so hard for me to talk about, because im so scared of hurting you. I just really don't want to hurt you and i feel like i have a wall up when im around you more so then i have with past ppl I've dated-- specifically a wall up about my own sexuality and sexual desires, i notice i do tend to hold back my thoughts and feelings because I worry i would turn you off or just make you uncomfortable and so i just dont say much in regards to you or honestly just my sexual thoughts in general not towards you--i just worry if i shared my sexual desires it would push you away somehow... idk its a tricky situation and ive struggled with how to even discuss it.

Like for example, this is kind of embarrassing to talk about but whatever its not really a secret, so like when i get turned on and overwhelmed i just kinda get quiet and shut down a bit, thats just a thing ive down before ive met you, but like, when this does happen with you I dont know how to even express what is going on through my head because im so worried about making you uncomfortable-- like for instance any party we've gone to together i do get super overwhelmed seeing you in these super hot outfits and i have to constantly tell myself to like keep my eyes looking at your eyes and not wandering and i just dont even know if it would make you feel uncomfortable if i were to say hey i think x body part looks super hot in that.. like or if you'd just laugh at me saying that like when i said i was turned on when we were making out, i just fear the reaction wouldn't be good so i just stay quiet about my thoughts and desires and sometimes it does get to me. When i see you in those outfits when we went to the party, when i see you in those black lacey underwear its like, my brain freezes and is no longer in the present, my consciousness has shifted into all of my fantasy thoughts of how I'd to touch you and everything i wish i could do to you because you look so hot and i cant stop thinking about it and my mind goes off in a daze, like a trance and i feel like normally i would be more vocal about my wants and desires when this happens but with you im like you probably do not wanna hear my thoughts and fantasizes because it would make you uncomfortable/ you are zero percent interested in doing these things and it isnt something hot for you so i just need to not say anything-- and that sometimes does get to me and makes me feel sad a bit... like tbh i do masturbate thinking about you, i mean i have for quite sometime now, and its just like at first i would try not to think about my fantasizes that i felt like you wouldnt be into, i would police fantasizes and be like no leah you can't even think about wanting to do these things... then not super long ago i was like fuck it i can think about whatever i want, i can think about all the things i wish i could do with you... and so i started fantasizing and masturbating to the thought of all the things i wish we would do but im pretty sure are outside of your comfort zone and that's now almost making me sad too-- its like after i cum im just like man that sucks that this is just a fantasy that i can't actually do.

And the thing is is its like, sex is a two way thing, like hypothetically if you were okay with some of the things i want to do its just like not the same if you are just neutral/lukewarm about it and actually turned on and want these things to happen as well. Like thats way hotter and i dont wanna just do the motions of sex while you arent invested or engaged because that's depressing and id rather not do it at all. Which is why ive never mentioned these things. Sometimes i think well we can work on this and other times i worry that we cant change just how we are very different sexually tho, like yes i can teach you how to touch me, i can teach you how to pretend to be into it but deep down I'll just be focused on how its you pretending to be engaged and you aren't actually interested in doing any of this-- it takes me out of it and its just hard to let go and relax, im worried about so many things and sex is only good when you're truly relaxed and trust the other person.

It just sucks. I often get overwhelmed and just want to touch you SO BAD. I just want it so bad and i have to pause and hold back and it just is soooo sexually frustrating!! But at the same time i want to touch you i want to go down on you i want to do all these things because i want to make you feel good and its like if these things cause anxiety and shit and make you uncomfortable then i don't wanna do it. It sucks. I just want to touch you, i want to feel you up, i want to hear you moan-- i just want to please you and make you feel good in these intimate ways... i wish you wanted to touch me and feel me up and hear me moan too tho, i wish you craved these things for me and its like at times i can feel you don't and it does take me out of it. I want you to want to touch me, i want you to fantasize about me like how i do for you but i know you just dont operate that way, its like what do you find hot about me? What turns you on about me? Because i can go on about all my fantasizes and stuff but it just feels weird to share when i dont even know what you think is hot about me.

And tbh the other day when we were talking about sex, i said i enjoyed you grinding on me and you did that after i said that and it made me realize i shouldve specified-- it wasnt just you grinding on me that was so hot-- tbh that time we had sex after i traveled back from Cleveland was the hottest time we've fucked for me and it made me really happy & hopeful, although i was so tired my memory was splotchy so i could even be misremembering what made it the hottest for me. I just remember you being on top of me and being like the most aggressive I'd experienced without me even asking, which was so hot and it made me feel like you weren't just lukewarm but were truly enjoying yourself and we were both into it which was so hot and what i want. I just remember you on top of me being aggressive and i was super into it and like moaning like crazy and quickly asked you to finger me. And as you were fingering me i remember feeling you grinding against my leg while wearing those super hot lacey black underwear-- and now idk if this was sweat or what, but tbh i could feel wetness as you were grinding against me and THAT was why it was so SO hot for me. That was the FIRST and really only time i had evidence that you were turned on and into it and thought i was hot and fucking me was hot and it just felt reassuring that you are into it and arent just doing the motions of sex. I didnt ask you to grind against me. You were just acting and doing what felt right and pleasing yourself rubbing against me and it was so hot.

Usually, i don't really get any evidence that you're turned on. I don't get an auditory moans or sighs. I dont get to feel you being wet, i dont get to feel ur nips being hard or anything. I dont get any signs that you are turned on besides you later telling me you are but i don't get any signs or validation in the moment and that time was so hot because i didnt even have to ask but you were just rubbing urself against me and i could feel you being wet which only turned me on more. Its like i want you to be enjoying yourself too. I dont want it to be one sided. A lot of the part that turns me on is seeing/hearing my partner being arousing and into it and i don't get that from you and its hard to get into it when it just feels like youre helping me masturbate rather then we are fucking... like i want to feel that you are invested, present, and into & engaged--but that one time when werr you being aggressive and rubbing yourself against me i felt for the first and only time that we were both into it and it wasnt just you touching me.

It sucks because i dont want you to feel bad. I understand we are just different and it is what it is. This isn't something that is a big deal that i want to like break up with you. Sex isnt everything and i feel we are compatible in so many ways-- it just is something i wish was different and more satisfying but it is what it is.

Another thing thats hard for me to speak on-- so i do have bottom Dysphoria and i feel very nervous about talking about it and my desires that validate my bottom Dysphoria because im like 99% sure you are zero percent interested in doing any of the things and it would just hurt me to have that confirmed so i just dont even vocalize it. It sucks cuz in the past year ive realized i do have bottom Dysphoria and i shouldnt feel ashamed and embarrassed by it and its something im still working on... but its like I've realized its hard for me to cum and be really turned on when i don't get to express my transexual desires. I think its especially hard because i still feel shy about it. The last person i was with was the first time i had ever been open about my bottom Dysphoria and it taught me a lot about myself. It sucks that i feel pretty confident that these desires that would validate my bottom dysphoria are off the table and would make you uncomfortable. Its hard and im too afraid to even ask and have that confirmed because it would hurt me too much.

But i guess i need to be brave and have this tough conversation and express my desires that I'm holding back just to know if any of them are something you'd be down to do and if not its fine. It probably would just be better for me to know rather then continuously wonder and feel sad about it.