#culture thinking abusive families are completely different from healthy ones

[sonicattos]

oh inspired by a mutual, but abusive family relationships are not all black/white. they can have fun, get along, have genuine and meaningful connections, can love each other, care for each other. that’s why they’re so hard to separate from. that’s why they’re so traumatizing. it’s painful because we’re all human and we’re complex. chances are the person who hurt you is also a victim, that’s what generational trauma comes from. it would hurt them to leave them and become better, but even if you stay, you’re both still suffering. the victim isn’t entitled to giving up their own autonomy for their abuser to take advantage of them, but you need to understand, when writing characters, that they might not even know that that’s happening to them, or that it matters. trauma can result to black and white thinking. to delusions. denial. stockholm syndrome. complex dynamics.

[redphlox]

Do you think it's possible that we may see the new Todoroki house in the end? I really hope so, although I have a small fear that Hori may have tossed that idea out.

That was one of the very few aspects of Endeavor's atonement arc I actually enjoyed. Him building a new home for them to live in without all the horrible memories from the old home. It would have been a place for them to heal and be a family together. It felt like it was foreshadowing the family being together and whole again. I always loved and look forward to seeing the new Todoroki home in the end, especially since it seemed like it heavily foreshadowed a healthy ending for the Todoroki family.

Although, with what we have currently in canon, I am a little afraid Horikoshi may have flip-flopped a little too much and forgot about the new Todoroki home.

As it stands now, Endeavor can't live alone in the old home because he's going to need a caretaker. Chapter 426 it looks like Rei is going to be his caretaker now. Touya will need to stay in the hospital due to his condition.

I do think it's still possible we'll see the new Todoroki family house in the end. After all, Endeavor had it built with the idea that the family could be together and heal apart from him, and he's still of this mindset. The house imagery has been a common motif throughout the story - look at Tenko and Toga's backstories. Tenko's home is destroyed, Toga's home is destroyed, and their families are gone because they either died and can't come back or don't want anything to do with their kid. But here sits this new, shiny, trauma-free house for the Todorokis who haven't abandoned their villain son Touya and WANT him in their lives despite the hell of it all. The new Todoroki house is there for a reason, narratively. As for Rei being a caretaker - there are many cultural elements at play regarding forgiveness, disability, and the duty of caring for a spouse. However, I personally, absolutely loathe the idea of Rei having to care for her abuser on multiple levels - morally, in terms of justice for abuse survivors, gender roles and stereotypes, and through a disability perspective. It's appalling that she lost ten years of being with her children, only to have to care for the person who took her away from them, especially since one of their children doesn't want to be near Endeavor. Also, not to mention the fact that the caretaker doesn't HAVE to be Rei. Expecting her to be his caretaker negates the guilt he feels about pushing her into a psychosis. "Hey, sorry about abusing you to the point that you threw scalding water on our son because he reminded you of me. Now you have to be my 24-hour helper and look at me all the time, though." It falls flat. He could hire someone. But above all else, if we're talking realistically, I disagree that Endeavor can't live alone and that he'd need a caregiver. My career is literally just this - rehabilitating people from injury and illness, etc. If Endeavor were my patient, I'd say he would be a great candidate for prosthetics and could learn different adaptations, techniques, and skills to become independent. He could even still be independent at wheelchair level, and would require less help than what other manga readers are imagining. There's even an example of this through Miruko, who also has two amputations, just like Endeavor, but now has prosthetics. And even if he needed help (which is completely fine - no one is morally obligated to become independent), he could hire someone to help. Lol. I want to type a much longer, more nuanced discussion about how BNHA frames disability, but that's for another post. This discussion is a lot more complex than what I just stated and I want to touch on many aspects, including how disability is portrayed in the general media and specifics in BNHA. Anyway… I went on a little tangent - but yes, I think the Todoroki house could come up again. I'm hopeful. Hori set these things up for a reason and I'm expecting he follows through. Endeavor and Dabi losing their arms also has set up to bring back a certain gag from the Stain arc.

[splintersfeelings]

Excerpt Repost from Subtle Asian Mental Health

My family is very warm and accepting, while remaining culturally Cantonese (and Canadian, and American) in a lot of ways. But my parents are also open-minded people, and even though they make mistakes, I think they are generally willing to listen to me even when I disagree with them, which I think has partially to do with their upbringing and spending a large part of their early years growing up without their parents' direct oversight. I think something that is easy to forget is that immigration is an inherently traumatic experience. It's especially easy to buy into the model minority myth, and the implicit assumption that when abuse happens in Asian families, it is because of "culture." But I don't think that's it at all. Asian folks leave their home countries for many reasons - political change, war, economic downturn. Each situation is different. But for the most part, the common backdrop in many of our collective pan-Asian experiences is the intergenerational trauma of western imperialism, and it's hard to understate the deep psychological, economic, political, and social harm caused by generations of genocide, war, famine, and theft. Obviously, experiencing trauma isn't an excuse to treat your family like shit. But I think it is also more complicated than "Asian families are inherently less loving than white families," and I think a lot of that results from internalized racism and the trauma of constantly viewing ourselves from a white lens. What is important is that white culture and Asian cultures do EXPRESS things differently. Neither is more predisposed to healthy or unhealthy family dynamics. But they may look DIFFERENT in how those versions appear. From my own experience with white friends and their families, I think white families that "appear" friendly and warm from the outside may have a lot of shit going on under the surface that an outsider might not see (religious trauma, domestic violence, infidelity, homophobia). White families also have a COMPLETELY different sense of money than a lot of Asian families, and while sometimes that can be a positive (independence), I also have seen it cut the other way (coldness and cutting children off). If you always view Asian families from a white individualist perspective, they will seem "bad," but a lot of it is just because of the lens of white individualism. There are a lot of toxic Asian families too, but we should think about what SPECIFICALLY is wrong about each one on a case-by-case basis, instead of being lazy and making sweeping racialized generalizations about ourselves that we have a "toxic culture" that is frankly untrue (and also compresses the wild diversity and variety among Asian cultures across East, Southeast, South, and Central Asia that are all very different from each other). White culture has plenty of patriarchy, homophobia, ageism, disrespect, domination, and abuse in it. Even if the "flavor" of abuse is different than many Asian cultures, it's still widely pervasive in white families. I think what a lot of overseas 2nd+ gen Asians don't realize is that they are conflating "white families" with a Hollywood concept of what a happy white family looks like, and I don't think that this picture of a domestic white family actually has much basis in reality. No family or culture is perfect, and the nature of this group and this page predisposes us towards only hearing from the "bad" side. But I hope that we in this community can also celebrate the ways that Asian parents DO show love, and the ways that WE show love to ourselves and to the people we care about that are just as meaningful and valid.

[malsfefanfics]

why can't hubert's siblings be recruited into blue lions?

(Yay! An OC ask! Thanks so much!)

Aside from familial loyalty? To put it simply, the culture of Faerghus, the expectations of Noble Society, and the Kingdom's connections with the Church of Seiros would make it impossible for them to thrive. And joining the Church itself is completely out of the question.

Tancred is chronically ill, his magic being too strong for his weak body causing issues, and currently can't speak vocally, relying on Sign Language and writing to communicate. With what we've been presented with in canon regarding how children in noble families are treated, Tancred would greatly suffer growing up in the Kingdom of Faerghus, because its current culture is hostile to chronically ill, disabled children like him. It would take a lot of societal restructuring to ensure he'd he able to live a happy, healthy life under Kingdom rule. Restructuring that I don't think would be near base level needs in his lifetime. Tancred also doesn't have a Crest, and doesn't particularly want one either. But because he has no Crest, he'd not be seen for the same worth as a child with one by most of the Kingdom's nobles. And with conditions as they are, I don't think most commoner families would consider taking him in over the period of the war, either. The little one has needs that just can't be met by current Faeghus society.

Sure, he'd probably be welcomed into the Church, but he'd most likely end up in Abyss once he got older due to his disabilities, if he didn't find his way down there before age 10 first due to potential abuse from some of the Church staff. Seriously, have you listened to some of the dialogue from them lately regarding the people of Abyss? Mini-Bert just wouldn't last long at the Church up top or down below. Not unless the Ashen Wolves, Rosamund, another noble from the three houses, Alois, Seteth, Hanneman, or Manuela looking out for him.

As for Rosamund, she is skeptical of anything regarding the Church and the Goddess due to, what I guess you could call, a mix of her layered crisis of Faith as well as her anger over their suppression of basic information like crop rotation and the printing press. She also wouldn't have the patience to deal with some of the less savory parts of the Kingdom's beliefs, especially regarding the differences in raising children with a Crest vs raising ones without a Crest. The last thing you'd want to do is to take her to Galatea territory because she'd be furious at the state of things there. There would have to be a lot of changes going on pre-timeskip before she'd consider even entertaining the idea of joining the Kingdom. And they'd have to happen faster than the rate Dimitri would suggest. Not to mention I don't think she'd be very welcomed in the church for long because she just loves learning things and applying what she learns to her own life (a trait she gets from her mother). She would absolutely start using anything she learned from the secret library if she thought it would be useful, and I don't think Rhea would like that very much. At best, she'd constantly butt heads with the Archbishop. At worst? She'd make herself Church's Biggest Enemy #3/4 after Edelgard, Hubert, and potentially Byleth.

To be honest, I think Rosamund would relate a lot to Claude's ideals and visions of the future for Fodlan, and would see him as a fairly viable option. It'd be hard, but if the cards were played right, I could see her being persuaded into joining the Alliance. Yes, it has it's problems too, but compared to the other factions? If Claude can make the changes Edelgard also wants to see happen, and he's able to prove he can do it better, she could make the hard decision to join his side. If nothing else, then to at least ensure her baby brother's future by being on the winning team. As much as she loves Hubert, if it came down to a choice between her brothers, she'd choose Tancred. (And Hubert wouldn't have it any other way).

So in non-CF routes, Tancred would stay home with mother, and Rosamund would join Claude. So long as Claude wins the war and makes good on his promises, Rosamund will follow. Otherwise, they stay on the side of the Empire.

[joinedtheghosts]

Been thinking a lot about the somewhat opposing (but not entirely so) notions of lifelong community vs the careful curation of who we spend time with/allow into our lives. This was partially spurred by my reading of this piece, Against Self-Sufficiency, which problematizes the almost flippant way in which some have come to conceptualize of community :

Nowadays, most people who have grown up with Western cultural values don't even know what a community is. It is not a subculture or a scene (see: “activist community” or “community accountability process”). Nor is it a real estate zone or municipal power structure (see: “gated community” or “community leaders”). If you will not starve to death without the other people that make up the group, it is not a community. If you don't know even a tenth of them since the day either you or they were born, it is not a community. If you can pack up and join another such group as easily as changing jobs or transferring to a different university, if the move does not change all the terms with which you might understand who you are in this world, it is not a community.

A community cannot be created in a single generation, and it cannot be created by an affinity group. In fact, you are not supposed to have affinity with most of the other people in your community. If you do not have neighbors that you despise, it is not a healthy community. In fact, it is the very existence of human bonds stronger than affinity or personal preference that make a community. And such bonds will mean there will always be people who prefer to live at the margins of the community. Whether the community allows this is what distinguishes the anti-authoritarian one from the authoritarian one.

Alternatively, this piece, Against Community Building, seems to disavow the notion of the community altogether, and instead herald friendship as the essential mechanism for mutual aid. Its author, ziq, writes that "The more time I spend amongst anarchists, the more I find the "anarchist community" ideal to be inherently unattainable and isolating. It seems every attempt at building an organized egalitarian community ends up enabling gross misconduct by certain members and the end result is always demoralizing burn-out for everyone involved. The attempt to group disparate strangers who barely get along, based on an imagined affinity (typically ideology, but painted in such broad strokes so as to be rendered inconsequential) inevitably manages to crash and burn every time." They seem to be pointing to the same issue about these newly amalgamated, ideology based communities, but turning to freedom of association and individual relationship building instead of longstanding intergenerational communities as a solution.

These two pieces have been floating around in my mind, alongside my recent lived experiences as a queer adult spending more time in the community of my childhood that I had to turn my back on completely in my late adolescence/the beginning of my twenties. I've experienced abuse. I've experienced community neglect stemming from imposed social structures and Western notions of privacy and the family unit. Despite these things, I think to sever ties completely with this community would be harmful to me, and antithetical to the types of community I seek. I am able to both recognize this and also build personal relationships and friendships and choose with whom I spend time and exchanged relationships of care. While it is not my personal experience, I also would relate this to these experiences of rural queer folks who are not interested in "escaping to the city" despite the adversity they will face. That is their home, that is their community. These spaces can be incredibly difficult to stay in and I have experienced first hand the necessity of leaving for a period of time, but I think the impact of staying within these communities is how we change and shape them in all the most beautiful and necessary ways.

[little-robin-h00d]

The Seven Deadly Sins are being taken too literally

Another hot take from me? So soon? Apparently so!

The Seven Deadly Sins are extremely misunderstood, particularly in American “Christianity”. Though, with how bastardized it’s become, American “Christianity” doesn’t resemble Christianity at all- but that’s a topic for another time. Let me explain how I see the deadly sins, as also according to some more historical contexts.

Pride: Taking pride in your accomplishments and knowing your value, worth, and skills is not a sin. Hell, all that shit is healthy! There’s such a thing as being too humble. What is bad is an excess of pride- being cocky, thinking others are lesser than you, thinking you’re better than everyone else.

Greed: Wanting nice things for yourself isn’t bad! Spoil yourself a little, treat yourself. What the sin of greed is supposed to be is basically “infinite growth”, never being content with what you have. A desire for more and more profit and/or power, no matter how much you already have. Think capitalism, landlords, lobbyists, ect.

Wrath: Getting righteously angry with someone who hurt you is not a sin, nor is being angry at an evil person. Anger, like all emotions, has a purpose. Anger is the part of you that cares, the part that wants to protect you and the people you care about. Wrath is something different. Wrath is causing needless harm because you can, wrath is taking advantage of the power you have over someone weaker than you, wrath is bigotry, wrath is animal abuse, or abuse from family, or a partner, or even a bully.

Envy: Feeling envious is perfectly natural! Especially if you’re not doing too well, yourself. However, it’s what you do with those feelings that matter. Taking it out on someone that’s doing better than you is not the way to go, neither is trying to take the thing you’re envious about away (that is, unless we’re talking about the greedy people from the Greed section above).

Lust: Sexual attraction and libido isn’t sinful, it’s completely natural for most people! And if you don’t have it, that’s okay, too! However, the sin of Lust isn’t even necessarily sexual! It ties in a little with greed, with lust for: sexuality, love, money, and/or power. Think perverts, rapists, incels, abusive people that desire to control others, dictators, big companies like Google, Walmart and Amazon, ect.

Gluttony: Gluttony is supposed to mean is hoarding wealth while others are poor and suffer because of it, indulging in feasts while people go hungry. Think billionares, like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Hoarding more wealth than you could ever possibly spend in a lifetime, buying “luxury” items just because you can afford it, like a third yacht, while people are poor. Think “let them eat cake”. Think McMansions that are unreasonably big and could in fact house multiple families, but only belongs to one person, when people are homeless. That’s what gluttony is.

Sloth: Sloth is a tricky one! Because there is truly no such thing as “laziness”, but that’s not all the sloth is. Sloth’s meaning actually doesn’t have much to do with so-called “laziness”, but more-so abandoning one’s responsibilities and not caring about it, and/or being selfish. It’s in humanity’s nature to care for others, and Sloth is the opposite, only caring for one’s self. Anyone with the “I’ve got mine, screw yours” attitude is exhibiting this sin. Many people with mental disabilities or illnesses, whether diagnosed are undiagnosed, are accused of being “lazy”, but they’re not. Actually, oftentimes, those people are trying much harder than normal people, and have many more roadblocks they have to face in order to be successful. To those people, myself included, it’s not your fault.

As you can see, society’s view on the Seven Deadly Sins has become extremely warped over the centuries, especially in modern American culture. The Seven Deadly Sins aren’t outdated, just misinterpreted and twisted into things they don’t actually mean. I think it’d be a good idea to bring the true meaning of these sins back, because oftentimes the true sinful behavior isn’t being viewed as sinful.

Now, I may have grown up catholic, but I’m agnostic. Take my words with a grain of salt, look into it yourself. Ask yourself what is truly harmful and sinful, and what behavior has only been painted that way by the people that are actually harmful/sinful.

[uelden]

Vanity Fair interview translated

Just a side note before the actual translation; I don't know why, but instead of reporting the full questions and answers in full as she should, the journalist decided to report only summarized fragments of what Måneskin said and patch these fragments up into messy clusters. She also worded a couple phrases in a very confusing way (and yes, she's fully Italian). In short, she did quite a poor job, so the final shape of the interview is not that good. I didn't expect top-tier journalism from Vanity Fair but ffs. You'll see what I mean.

I translated it as it is, adding just a couple footnotes to give you insight on Italian pop culture references.

Translation under the cut

Måneskin: "Different from whom?"

by Lavinia Farnese, 09 June 2021

"True justice is being judged for what you do and not for what you are." The ones who are convinced of this are Damiano, Victoria, Ethan and Thomas who, by being the emblem of a generation that is finally free, refuse labels and conformism. In life, in love and on the stage. Where, maybe precisely because of this, they're winning everything

With the still unexpected (first place at Sanremo Festival) and the incredible (triumph at Eurovision) in their eyes, Måneskin are on the sofa of the house-studio they rented - to resume writing songs and rehearsing them - like you are after a won battle: lying in a calm and unreal silence, alert and a bit irreverent, happy.

In the garden there's the tennis table and the pool, the light of summer when it's starting and calming the country all around, and it filters inside from the large windows, and it goes onto the shining black of Ethan's hair, which blends with Thomas' eye shadow and the butterfly he has tattooed oh his naked forearm, which completes the picture of Victoria's golden crucifix hanging between neck and tank top and ends on the black nail polish of Damiano's stretched hands.

It's a human fresco, a Theatre of wrath [translator's note: "Teatro d'ira"] - to call it with the title of their latest album, a platinum record already - where their flaunted 20 years of age, their irregular femininity and virility are grown into proud and challenging custom, a pop glam rock generational manifesto of hard-earned liberties in a finally-unconditional expression of the self.

To watch them from any angle and from another age is to think that a great love will be born in those who'll understand: this new way of being in the world, the true and sovereign realm they hold where "diversity=exceptionality", the power of the artistic and cultural revolution of which they are healthy carriers in establishing in all lyrics and gestures the right to live according to one's own nature past the "people (who) talk, the people (who) unfortunately talk, and don't know what the fuck they're talking about." [tn: "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

We go where we're afloat, where the air isn't gone. [tn: journalist's own variation on "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

Miley Cyrus says hi – The numbers of a phenomenon

"The streams of Zitti e buoni are growing by the second, and they bring us above Muse, at the top of English charts, twelfth in the Spotify Global Chart. Followers almost tripled, in the post-Rotterdam period (from 1,4 to 3,3 millions, ed.) Contagious and universal folly: t-shirts and merchandising sold out in 10 minutes. Like the records, the tickets for a tour that keeps adding dates and expanding over geographic maps. They're contacting us even from some festivals were The Rolling Stones went." Thomas

"After the pretextual controversy over cocaine that France built against us, later disproven by my drug test, some graffiti popped up in Spain depicting me as a “No drugs” poster guy. Some tweets made us laugh: "Congratulations, Italy! I've never been more certain that four people have had sex with each other." Miley Cyrus started following us -You're great. -You guys are greater." Damiano

From the garage to the stars – Story of a flight

"It was only 2016, and we played in restaurants, in the streets, in via del Corso. Damiano without even a microphone, Thomas' guitar with wonky strings, Ethan was drumming on a cajón. During Rome highschools' sit-ins (Kennedy, Virgilio, Mamiani) we had our first confirmations and half-hours of celebrity, playing among those who criticized us and those who went "wow they're really cool." One of the rare times when they would have paid us – 50 euros each – we gave the money to the next band in the lineup so that they would make us play in their spot, later in the day, when there would have been more people. We had already realized how things worked. Visibility mattered more than money. And we still think that." Victoria

The intimacy of rock – Choice of a genre

"Music allows us the miracle of extending to others some very personal and private topics, sometimes even difficult and thorny ones. They are and they remain deeply your own, but at the same time they become a confession that reaches a wider audience, and in this passage that is alike a delivery, they find a place in you as well, a processing of them. You overcome them, you accept them. One second it's something aggressive, the next it's a ballad. Cathartic». Damiano

Against panic – The stage as therapy

"I've suffered a lot from anxiety and panic attacks, it's an issue I've worked on thanks to a psychotherapy course, my friends and my family. Playing helped me in not letting myself be paralyzed by my fears, not making myself limited in my private and professional life. I've learned to accept, to live with this side of myself. I don't hide it. I don't feel ashamed of it." Victoria

Analysis as necessity – Relying on someone saves you

"This belief that only madmen go to the psychologist is a widespread ignorance. No-one's born learned. [tn: common Italian saying] And it's often hard to understand the very reason why we're here, let alone the origin and direction of our desires. It's a long and legitimate journey towards lucidity, a kind of backing to become transparent." Damiano

Being out of our minds – But different from them [tn: "Zitti e buoni" lyrics]

"When you feel a strong passion towards something that is not a canonical job but an artistic language, that already puts you on a level of anomaly, which is not superior or inferior to other people, but it puts you in the position of the one who breaks the mold and also works at a loss, the one who sustains great risks while trying to do something that who knows if it will take you anywhere. "Why do it if it doesn't pay?". You want to give this dream of yours an aesthetic, but it becomes "You're dressing so weird! You must be gay!" - now that I'm 22 I laugh about it, but when I was 17 it had an effect on me, too." Damiano

The beauty of uniqueness – Of believing in it and defending it

"And I mean, at the end of the day if we're all different it's not because we want be alternative but because, really, no-one is the same. Justice is being judged on what you do and not what you are. Justice is equality, respect, beauty." Ethan

Fluid sexuality – Pride is freedom

"Heels for men that like themselves in them, kisses among ourselves, we have an open, extended mind, and we're proud of it. The horizons become vast, past the oppression of conservative families. With the information on the web knowledge becomes greater and with it the possibility that minorities will be less and less minorities, because the majority will be less of a majority. This way we'll make insults and bullying grow quieter. If social media get to a village of 50 souls and reveal to a girl who's afraid of the dark that someone has felt her same fear, then there's no reason to give a name to that fear, to mark it with labels which also limit and restrict. Definitions always had this effect on me. You shouldn't even consider the gender when judging someone, let alone their orientation." Victoria

Sexism – A culture to be dismantled

"Emma [tn: Emma Marrone, Italian singer] drops the bomb: “At Eurovision when I was there they massacred me for a pair of shorts, while they said nothing to Damiano – bare-chested and in heels.” The easy judgment against women is more fierce, constant, debasing (if I have a lot of sex I'm cool while Vic is a whore, where I show myself strong I'm a leader while Vic is despotic and a pain in the ass who reached success because she's hot.) As a male I'm privileged, the abuse I get is not comparable to those a woman has to live through, the comments over my aesthetic are centered only on my aesthetic and don't insinuate anything about my professionalism and my competence, while women are victims of this kind of thought in a systematic way. It happened though to find myself standing with a woman who while pulling me to herself to take a selfie, started licking my face out of the blue... I mean, what the hell do you want? Who asked you? Consent exists, and it's due." Damiano

Grow yourself – The only commandment

"To me conformism is the opposite of education [tn: could also mean "politeness"] and is the asphyxia of expression. I fortunately never endured heavy bullying, heavy enough for the the judgement of others to change me. But the mold of the small crumbs of bullying I got and of the kind of aggression that scars is the same. If I'm a kid who dances and likes dolls you have to let me do what I like. I was a kid who wanted to keep his hair long and played with Barbie. As a teen, my friends looked at my hair: " You have to find a girl with short hair to be at your side." My grandparents took away my dolls: "Stop it, they're not for you." Ethan

"When I was six I was already sick of them, the distinctions between masculine and feminine. I've always had strong ideas about how I wanted to be. I refused things that were typically defined as girly, and all around me they mocked me because I went skateboarding, I played soccer, I didn't wear skirts, I was giving myself the chance to be as I wished. I endured it a little, I suffered a little, but I had courage, and now thanks to that courage I know that I could have gotten even much more hurt, otherwise I would have left to others the most important choice: the one about myself." Victoria

Love in progress – Music, girlfriends

"I've been married to music for the last 20 years. I can't wait to celebrate our golden wedding anniversary." Ethan

"Everyone makes their own experiences, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes wrong, but it's always not anybody's business." Thomas

"When I first felt feelings and attraction towards a girl it was a bit disorienting because I had never had the courage of going beyond the limitations I had put for myself. For society being heterosexual is the norm and so you often define yourself in that way automatically, depriving yourself of the freedom to live many shades and faces of love. Once I overcame the initial insecurity of having to call into question my certainties I've lived my sexuality in a very natural and free way, as it should be for everyone." Victoria

"I had paparazzi at my door every day and night. So, after four years of relationship, I revealed her name. I still have paparazzi at my door every day and nigh, but at least I don't have to hide anything anymore." Damiano

The worth of the group – Phenomenology of protection

"The true engagement though, the true family is among ourselves, our band. We've believed in it since day zero, even before we called ourselves Måneskin (Moonlight in Danish), even before Ethan drew a giant moon on the flier for the first concert we ever did. We share everything, even the pain for the tragedy of Seid Visin, who committed suicide at 20 because of racism. [tn: I think the journalist asked them their opinion about Seid Visin's death, which was a current events topic in Italy, and then pasted it syntaxically in the middle of Thomas' answer, which was not a great move] A group is what we all should be: stay united and not back down an inch in the face of oppression that is generated by a distorted view of diversity." Thomas

I'm not of the right age – Like Gigliola [tn: Gigliola Cinquetti won Eurovision with her song "Non ho l'età", which means "I'm not of the right age"]

"Before you the only one who won both Sanremo and Eurovision on the same year was Cinquetti (1964). If there's anything I feel I'm not of the right age for? No, honestly no. Maybe having children. Regarding children I'll be honest: I'm not of the right age." Damiano

Having touched the sky – The fears that remain

"We're more than inside the dream, we're in the conquered dream. When you fly high there's the risk of plummeting and hurting yourself, but we'll work hard not to end up like Icarus, who burns his wings with the sun. Everything is in our hands. And this - a bit pretentiously - reassures us rather than scaring us." Damiano

[alfredolover119]

I looooove your zukka rec lists! I recently became Avatar-obsessed, never got a chance to watch it as a kid and only just got through it all! I was wondering if you'd consider doing a specifically angst rec list? I love fluffy zukka everything, but sometimes you just gotta have your heart ripped out of your chest and put back in after being thoroughly blended.

thank you! i relate heavily to “recently became Avatar-obsessed” haha. as for the angst list, i sure can try! warning: all of these have happy endings because im a crybaby who can’t read unhappy endings. also, p much all of the fics in the completed section were featured on my other lists but this is specifically the ANGSTY ones >:^)

angsty zukka wips

first, most obviously, feels like we only go backwards by @oldpotatoe

-currently at 102k with 19/27 chapters posted; rated teen

-the amnesia fic. the amnesia fic. the amnesia fic. you know. i haven’t actually read it yet because, as previously mentioned, i’m a crybaby and am waiting for it to finish up but, from my understanding, this fic will murder you in a dark alleyway with no remorse. if u like zukka angst, you’ve probably already read this, but just in case!

An injury leaves Sokka with amnesia. His last memory is of the failed invasion, of leaving his father behind in enemy territory on the Day of Black Sun. Of hopelessness. Rage. // But then he wakes up, and the war is over. Suddenly, he must come to terms with the fact that years have passed, and that he's somehow the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador to the Fire Nation. He is also supposedly friends with banished-Prince-turned-Fire-Lord Zuko, of all people. Close friends.

Yeah, nah.

and i’ll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands) by @goldrushzukka

-currently 38k with 6/8 chapters posted; rated mature

-holy shit. holy SHIT. modern au based on the “my cat likes my fuckbuddy and i am falling in love” trope(?). maybe it’s just because of how the last chapter ended, but oh my god. this one made me cry. made me want to commit violence. when it’s not angsty as hell, it’s pretty funny, but holy shit. ao3 user nebulastucky please.

It’s supposed to be a one night stand. Pick up some guy at a bar, barely remember his name and never learn anything real about him, send him packing in the morning with a thanks for the ride and a cup of coffee to-go. That’s how it’s supposed to go. // But then it’s the best sex Sokka has ever had, and he thinks he’ll hate himself if he never gets to have it again.

Violet Blossoms and Celestial Objects by @hollypunkers

-currently 15k with 2/? posted. rated teen.

-this is the sequel to blue (an angsty, zukka rewrite of book 2-- go read it if u havent!)! !! this is a book 3 rewrite. only two chapters in and mrs hollypunkers is really abusing the miscommunication tag, as zukka writers seem to enjoy doing. im excited to see how the world and story develops with the changes to the story! you should be too!! its very good! obviously spoilers for blue lmao

Having sided with the Avatar in Ba Sing Se, Zuko not only must navigate his new relationship with Sokka but returning to the Fire Nation as a banished enemy. His own journey of self discovery and personal growth must now coexist alongside the personal struggles of every other member of the Gaang as together they blaze a treacherous path toward an unsure victory against Zuko's own father and nation.

breakable heaven by @fruitysokka

-currently 71k with 9/11 chapters posted. rated teen

-swt ambassador zuko! soon to be chief sokka! fake dating ur best friend to get out of an arranged marriage! what could go wrong!!! i also haven’t read this one ((see: i’m a crybaby who is being hurt by too many zukka wips already)), but it has been hanging out in my marked for later for months. from what i understand, this fic has: angst.

With his twenty-first birthday looming just around the corner, the Southern Water Tribe Elders have decided that Sokka, next in line to be Chief, needs to get married. Sokka does not want that, but he does need to get them off his back until he can figure his way out of it. What better way to do that than to pretend to date his best friend (and newly minted Ambassador to the Southern Water Tribe) Zuko? // Seriously, this is a foolproof plan. Maybe one of Sokka's best. Absolutely nothing can go wrong.

angsty zukka fics (completed!)

(i’ll put these in wc order)

lighthouse beam by @incorrectzukka

-7k, rated g

-a modern college au!! zuko’s inner-monologue is very angsty in this fic. typical zuko. also per usual, theyre both fucking dorks. they sort themselves out in the end, but not before The Angst. zuko is semi-deaf in this fic and also he has a bit of internalized homophobia.

Sokka’s breathtakingly beautiful and he’s smart and makes other people laugh. Zuko has a half-burnt face and a deaf ear. It’s not rocket science. // Or, Zuko falls in love with the boy in his Philosophy class.

This Isn’t My Idea of Fun by @khaleeseas

-9k, explicit

-moon spirit/nwt prince!sokka, no war to be found here! admittedly this isnt THAT angsty but like. the angst IS present. zuko is still the prince. a lovely childhood friends (though they hated each other for a minute haha) to lovers story. 

If you asked Zuko, he and Azula saw far too much of Chief Hakoda of the Northern Water Tribe’s children growing up. It wasn’t until they were older, and Azula pointed out that - duh - their families were trying to set them all up, that he realized why. // He was told by his mother to be polite. These people were their friends and allies, and though their nations were as different as they came, harmony between nations was the most important thing. // It wasn’t his fault the Chief’s children were so annoying.

put your lips close to mine (as long as they don’t touch) by @celestialceci

-9k, teen

-modern au! zuko and sokka are college roommates. zuko goes to spend the summer with sokka. again,, not really that angsty but-- its there!! the detail and feeling of Home in this story make me happy. zuko is insecure as hell here too. if ur into that. 

Zuko hates his home. He likes college alright, but he likes Sokka even better, his assigned roommate turned best friend. Spending the summer with Sokka will be fun, a welcome change of pace he desperately wants. It probably won't awaken anything in him... right?

the thing about dancing by anodymalion

-9k, teen

-yes. this one right here officer. it makes my heart ache. also trans sokka! which is cool. but the zuko angst in this one. hurts me. not so much relationship angst as it is zuko learning he deserves happiness angst. i’m sure u know The Type.

The first time a attendant spills Zuko’s tea and doesn’t immediately fall to her knees, begging the Fire Lord’s forgiveness, it is not anger but a resounding warmth that fills his chest.

i could (never) give you peace by @zukkababey

-10k, mature

-OUCH. OUCH OUCH OUCH. boys please learn to communicate im begging u. also zuko.. zuko, dude. as the tags of the fic say, hes “really going through it” in this one. YOUCH. post-canon.

Zuko almost said it. He almost said the words I think I’m in love with you, but he choked them back down at the last second. // Zuko would never be able to be what Sokka wanted. They might have needed each other during the summer, when two boys with too much weight on their shoulders found comfort in each other in the only way they knew how. // But now Zuko was Fire Lord, and Sokka was leaving.

this love burns so yellow (becoming orange and in its time, exploding) by @meliebee 

-18k, teen, major character death 

-i lied. THIS is the one, officer. found family.. good mai and zuko and toph friendships.. . ozai escapes prison and tries to overthrow zuko. OBVIOUSLY angst ensues. poor boy. he Does heal in this but it gets worse before it gets better. angst angst angst angst.

Ten months after Zuko is crowned at seventeen, he faces his first coup.

Anything for You by beersforqueers

-23k, explicit

-istg. this is probably one of my favorite zukka fics. its PAINFUL. modern au where theyre broken up but sokka hasnt told his family yet so zuko goes home with him for kataang wedding. a bit smutty, but the plot oh my god ohgm y fuvk. made me cry the first time i read it. (see: crybaby!me) insert that one picture of the horse with the caption PAIN. 

In which Sokka and Zuko have broken up but Sokka hasn't told his family yet. So when Katara and Aang's wedding weekend rolls around and he doesn't want to break Gran-Gran's heart, he asks Zuko to pretend to be his boyfriend for one last weekend. // Things don't go as planned.

Moving Mountains by @thefangirlingdead

-64k, mature

-so. when i read this the first time it was in one sitting. soulmate au set within canon era / the comics, to an extent. soulmates can hear each others thoughts. i will happily say this is slowburn, jesus christ. champagne without the cham. 

Soulmates are chosen by the spirits and can hear each other’s thoughts. Sokka thinks it’s cheesy and dumb. Zuko thinks it’s poetic justice that he doesn’t have one because he doesn’t deserve it. Cruel irony is finding out that the prince of the Fire Nation (and the person currently hunting you) is your soulmate.

In the Soft Light by @voidcenturyscholar and @romancedawning

-83k, teen, graphic depictions of violence

-moon spirit!sokka living in the northern water tribe. zuko is sent to the northern water tribe as a cultural liaison. iroh is the fire lord but while he is away taking care of lu ten after his injury ozai steps up. i cannot express how many emotions this fic made me feel. background yuetara. i would almost say found family?? but. anyway. plenty of angst to spare here with a healthy dose of enemies to friends to lovers.

As the newly appointed cultural liaison to Northern Water Tribe, Zuko is the first Fire Nation Citizen to step foot inside the city's walls in nearly a century. He's determined to prove himself—to the Fire Lord and to his father—even if the Water Tribe's spirit-touched prince seems to want nothing to do with him.

That Midnight Sky by @zukkababey

-103k, teen

-now now now. tms... modern college au where sokka agrees to tutor zuko in physics because zuko has to maintain straight a’s and physics is just not doing it for him. so. thats cool but THEN azula moves in, randomly, with zuko. to hide the fact that sokka is tutoring zuko, they fake date! what could go wrong!! the mutual pining in here combined with the angst... wonderful, tasty. everyone read it rn. also SLOWBURN 

In Zuko’s strict family, needing a tutor is just about the worst thing you could do. Failing a class, however, is even worse. The only rational solution? Take up Aang on his offer to find him a physics tutor and have Sokka—beautiful, smart, handsome Sokka—tutor him in secret. // When Azula’s arrival threatens to reveal Zuko’s secret, it’s up to Sokka to convince her this definitely isn’t what it looks like. See, he’s actually… Zuko’s… boyfriend? // Hmm. There’s no way this could get complicated, right?

[queeranesearch]

So recently people have been talking about a post that claims that Azula is a pacifist, which is certainly...a take, that I want to counter. 

[ID: A tumblr post reading “there’s a very compelling argument to be made that, after aang, azula is the most pacifistic/anti-violence character in the whole show. but no one wants to hear me back on my bullshit so i’m just gonna leave this here.]

Before we start, I would like to preface that this is not me attacking them, or wishing any hate towards them; I just think it’s important for this topic to be discussed, and for white atla fans to acknowledge how comparing Aang and Azula in this way is wrong.

First off, let’s start with the bold claim that Azula has a kill count of zero. Now, the show itself seems to tell us that Azula kills Aang when she shoots him with lightning; Katara was literally cradling his unresponsive body, and later in ‘The Awakening’, Aang says  “I didn’t just get hurt, did I? It was worse than that. I was gone.” So, it’s safe to say that Aang was dead, or at least the brink of death before Katara used the spirit water on him. Even if you wanted to argue that Aang didn’t die, but was just close to death, it’s very clear that Azula shot him with the intent to kill him. Not a very pacifistic move. 

Second off, the god awful take that the Ba Sing Se coup wasn’t violent. She colonized that city. Azula is actively upholds imperialistic views that are inherently violent; the entire Earth Kingdom was subjected to violence from the Fire Nation, and Azula perpetuated that by seizing Ba Sing Se in the name of her father, stating herself that she believes the Fire Nation has the “divine right to rule”, and that she was “born” with this right. In case you haven’t got the message: The idea that one group of people is superior to another, and has the right to rule over them, is violent and actively harms people.

Then there’s the argument that Azula’s non-violent because she didn’t order for Mai and Ty Lee to be executed for treason at Boiling Rock, but instead has them thrown in prison. Firstly, we can see that Azula was preparing to shoot Mai with lightning; even if not with intent to kill, definitely with the intent to harm. Secondly, having Mai and Ty Lee thrown into prison to- and I quote- “rot”, is again wishing harm on them.

Additionally, the “friendship” between the three is debatable. Perhaps when they were younger their relationship was different, but as we see them in the show, it’s certainly not a friendship; or at least, not a healthy one. Ty Lee didn’t want to join Azula, but was threatened into doing so; if Mai didn’t comply, she would have been threatened too. Both Mai and Azula state that their relationship is built off fear, not love. Although I think that Azula on some level would call Mai and Ty Lee friends, she clearly has a warped idea of what friendship should be like; even Azula’s hallucination of Ursa states that she “used fear to control people, like [her] friends Mai and Ty Lee”, showing again that Azula is conscious of her power over others. Even if she doesn’t “like” violence, she uses it to her advantage. 

Which leads me to my next counter argument; Azula is not conflict-avoidant. Quite the opposite, she uses it to her advantage; saying that Zuko killed the Avatar when it was her is not avoiding conflict; getting with a one on one fight with Zuko to capture Aang is not avoiding conflict. She had a hunch that Aang survived and therefore let Zuko take the ‘glory’ so she would be spared the punishment; she engaged in a fight with Zuko because she wanted Aang. She only fled when she was outnumbered. She doesn’t agree to have an agni kai with Zuko in Ba Sing Se because she gains nothing from doing so. Azula takes into account the pros and cons of engaging with others; just because she doesn’t mindlessly use violence doesn’t mean she’s somehow a pacifist. Really, Azula’s trauma response is to try and gain as much control as possible, because she was raised in an environment that encouraged power and punished ‘weakness’. (Side Note: it should also be mentioned that whilst she doesn’t always use physical violence, she most certainly uses emotional and mental violence, particularly against Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee.)

Thirdly, I want to address the franky horrible take that Aang’s pacifism is childish. Apparently since people need a reminder; Aang is a survivor of genocide. He’s not a pacifist because violence “makes him uncomfortable”, he’s a pacifist because pacifism is an integral part of his culture; the Air Nomads were deeply in touch with the spiritual world and so they saw all life as sacred. Aang carries the grief of a civilisation lost; he’s the only one left to carry on its culture; submitting to murder would literally mean abandoning the Air Nomad way of life and therefore, letting the Fire Nation complete that cultural genocide. It’s baffling and quite frankly abhorent to even try and compare Azula, the daughter of the imperialist, colonizing nation, to Aang, the sole surviver of genocide from the hands of said nation. ( @herglowinggirl​ has made a good post about this here)

The imperial system of the Fire Nation is what caused Azula’s trauma (Ozai instilled abusive behaviours in her, as he was by his father, etc etc). It is only when after achieving the goal she’s been groomed to achieve from the start, does she realise that she is left alone with nothing but these manipulative, violent behaviors. With quite literally nothing else to lose, no reason to be pragmatic, she engages in the final agni kai. 

Tl;dr: Azula is not pacificistic or anti-violence, she is smart about when she uses it, and repeatedly uses it against friends and family. It’s only when she has nothing else to lose does she get careless with it.

[linkspooky]

Repress Your Feelings, Girl.

Toga and Uraraka can’t understand each other: because Toga can’t explain herself properly, and Uraraka doesn’t really want to understand. However, there’s also a narrative reason behind why these two characters are fighting each other. It has nothing to do with morality, good or bad, hero or villain, but rather the writing of the characters themselves. Toga Himiko and Uraraka are foils, two sides of the same coin meant to reflect each other. They are essentially (in narrative terms at least) the same person, just both of them expressing different sides of themselves. Uraraka Ochako represses, and Himiko Toga expresses herself, more on their foiling underneath the cut. 

Before I start out I just wanted to point out a few of the deliberate paralels the narrative draws between the two characters. First, the girls come from completely opposite circumstances. 

Uraraka comes from a poor family, whereas Toga comes from what seems to be a wealthy household, considering there’a a gate in front of their door. 

Typically Himiko would be the privileged one, but the narrative inverts this. Uraraka grows up in a household where her identity is affirmed by her parents no matter what. Himiko grows up in a household where she is constantly told she is wrong by her parents. 

Ochako is continually accepted for who she is, and Toga is told not to be herself, not only suffering parental abuse, but also psychiatric abuse on top of that. 

One more way in which they are opposites, Ochako is someone who tends to be sheltered (her parents did her best to hide the fact they were suffering from her because she didn’t want her to feel guitly about it, however it produced the opposite effect, Uraraka got better at reading the faces of people and noticing their suffering.)

Himiko on the other hand has grown up very unsheltered, she’s been on her own since middle school. There’s several hints she’s been exposed to the ugliest side of people already and spends her life running away from them and keeping herself safe from them. 

Himiko and Uraraka are both incredibly good at reading other people, but they developed this ability for opposite reasons. Uraraka who was sheltered noticed the pain her parents tried to hide from her and developed it compassionately, and Himiko who has been on the run for most of her life developed it as a method of survival. However, that doesn’t mean that Himiko is lacking compassion, or Uraraka always empathizes with everyone she meets, because both of them are complex individuals. 

Himiko is capable of empathizing with other people, not only that but she’s grown significantly out of her shell and learned that other people besides her have needs, feelings she needs to take care of, to the point where she’s stopped prioritizing herself first in all circumstances. On the other hand, Uraraka is just as capable of shutting her feelings down and ignoring the viewpoints of other people she finds disagreeable with her own. 

Uraraka and Toga are also both extremely social people, however all of Uraraka’s friends accept her for who she is. Deku knows Uraraka so well that he can tell when Toga, pretending to be Camie, is the one replacing her. Toga is someone who like Uraraka was always at the center of a group of friends tying her together. However, Toga could only present her fake self in front of them. 

1. The Repressed

Jung divides the self into three, the shadow, the persona, and then the ego (self) which is made of a combination of the former too. 

Persona

The persona is how we present ourselves to the world. The word "persona" is derived from a Latin word that literally means "mask." It is not a literal mask, however.

The persona represents all of the different social masks that we wear among various groups and situations. It acts to shield the ego from negative images. According to Jung, the persona may appear in dreams and take different forms. [source]

Shadow

The shadow is an archetype that consists of the sex and life instincts. The shadow exists as part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings.

The shadow forms out of our attempts to adapt to cultural norms and expectations. It is this archetype that contains all of the things that are unacceptable not only to society, but also to one's own personal morals and values. [source]

My Hero Academia uses Jungian Symbolism, especially in regards to Himiko and Uraraka’s characters, this isn’t something I made up it’s directly in the text. Toga’s act of repression is literally called: wearing a mask. 

Toga and Uraraka are written to contrast each other on which part of themselves they present to the world. Uraraka is extremely conscious of other people’s expectations of her, so she plays up her persona. Uraraka is someone who is always putting up a show for others because she knows how they perceive her. 

Her own perceptiveness works against her, because while she loves seeing people happy the most she also can’t stand to see them in pain, or even be the reason why they’re in pain. Uraraka’s solution to this is a rather immature one, she believes if she’s good all the time, if she’s always this pleasant and happy person and never shares her problems then she won’t drag the mood down. 

Uraraka is conflict avoidant in other words. There are times she directly addresses the conflict like the times with Tsuyu, but even then it’s in a “We should all get along as friends” sort of way. Uraraka always pushes her feelings down and tries her hardest never to cause trouble for others. However there’s a line between trying not to hurt others, and simply pretending the conflict does not exist. 

The shadow is the part of ourselves we repress in order to play for other’s expectations. The persona is a performance, it’s the personality you perform every day. You would swear with a group of friends, but you wouldn’t swear in front of your grandparents. People hide parts of themselves depending on who they’re interacting with, personality is in part a performance to the expectations of others around you, that’s natural. Everyone will have a side of themselves they show to others, and a side of themselves they keep repressed. That’s natural. What is not natural is to be all one way or all the other. 

‘Man is not truly one, but truly two’ “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” 

The point of the shadow and the persona, is that both are true at the same time. You are both who you pretend to be, and what you hide of yourself. The persona is not fake just because it’s a performance, and the shadow isn’t the true self or all there is to you just because it’s hidden. However, the opposite is true at the same time, the persona is not all of who you are, and you can’t make your shadow go away just by repressing it. 

Psychological repression is not a healthy strategy for dealing with emotions. It doesn’t resolve emotions, it just makes them go away for a short time. One response to the presence of a shadow is to simply ignore it, but ignoring it will just make you ignorant. 

Uraraka views herself to be a good person, and views heroes to be good, but that belief hasn’t come from confronting the bad of society and deciding that heroes are still good anyway. Which is my point, not that Uraraka is wrong, but that she’s ignorant. She’s sheltered, naive, and her lived experience is so narrow she can’t realy make a judgement call on Toga that’s accurate. Like, just for exmaple heroes do in fact kill people. They even get excited about completely destroying villains. 

There are heroes who become heroes just to beat the shit out of villains, there are heroes who will try to kill villains, Tokoyami gets confronted with the fact that Hawks killed a villain and his first response is: You did nothing wrong, Hawks. Uraraka sees heroes as the ideal only ever saving people. Yes heroes save people. There are other heroes who are violent. It’s not one or the other, the truth requires acknowledging both at once. Uraraka’s point that she would never feel happy about violence is a false one, because she doesn’t know that for one, and two heroes are just as capable of violence as villains. 

The key point to repression is that it doesn’t work. 

Himiko already tried reperssing herself and it just drove her insane. The feelings don’t go away simply by pretending that they are not there. Even in a narrative sense, Uraraka’s shadow that she has repressed has escaped her in the form of Himiko and is running around constantly trying to challenge her and confront her to get her to acknowledge those feelings. The feelings will not go away, and Uraraka’s solution is to just keep putting a lid on them and pretending they are not there. It’s because she has such a tight lid on herself it makes her impossible to see things from Himiko’s point of view. 

Why is Uraraka supposed to understand things from Himiko’s point of view? Because Himiko is Uraraka, she’s all of her repressed flaws come to roost. Uraraka cannot change or improve as a person until she accepts both the best and worst of herself instead of just trying to always be good all the time. Understanding Himiko leads to a more gray and nuanced understanding of reality rather than the black and white: heroes good, villains bad. Himiko is a foil, a narrative device used to show the flaws of another character. 

Uraraka did nothing wrong / Uraraka is right. 

Well okay then, but Uraraka would be a pretty boring character otherwise. She’d just be a good girl who did good things all the time and always tried her hardest. I’m not trying to insinuate Uraraka is a bad person, I’m arguing in favor of her complexity. I think there is more to her character than just her trying to be a better hero, and getting stronger and learning to use her powers better. There’s an emotional complexity to Uraraka that she represses. 

Emotionally, Uraraka is similiar to Himiko because they both cope poorly in the same way. Emotional repression is unhealthy. Himiko has only two modes, repress everything or don’t repress anything and both of those extremes are bad. Uraraka is on the path to becoming Himiko, because the only way she knows how to deal with things is to shut her feelings off and as Himiko said that doesn’t work: it just drove Himiko insane. 

2. The Expressed

Himiko Toga is who she is in reaction to her trauma. Uraraka pushes herself down and tries to play to the expectations of others, and Toga asserts herself and tries to defy other people’s expectations. 

I’m actually going to blow everybody’s minds here though: Toga doesn’t actually want to murder people and suck their blood dry. It’s what she thinks she wants, but once again, she is who she is, in reaction to trauma. Toga was violently abused, Toga became violent, but it’s not who she is inherently. It’s who she thinks she is. 

Toga has internalize every bad thing every person has ever said about her. Toga not only foils Uraraka, she also foils Shigaraki. Toga has been convinced, that what she wants naturally, is to suck people’s blood, and kill them. The same way that Shigaraki has been convinced by AFO that he was naturally born with the urge to destroy others. 

These aren’t things that they have a natural inclination or desire to do, it was things they were told about themselves repeatedly. Shigaraki by AFO, and Toga by everyone around her. Even Toga’s initial incident of violence has a lot more in common with a psychotic break, then with you know, a pre-meditated murder that she did for pleasure. 

It’s not something Toga naturally did on her own, it was something she was pushed to do. Remember, Toga suffered twofold abuse. Abuse from her parents, but also psychiatric abuse. The people who were supposed to help her reconcile her quirk, and her unnatural tendencies didn’t try to heal her like they were supposed to. She was demonized by everyone around her, told what a bad girl she was constantly, not for anything she did wrong but because she was born naturally with a quirk. She tried to be good and smile for the sake of others, untils he reached a breaking point: then and only then did she lash out. 

Toga’s initial instant of violent wasn’t a pleasure killing. It was a lashing out due to a psychotic break, and it was because both of the systems in her life that were supposed to help teach her to learn to deal with emotions, quirk counselling this world’s version of child therapists, and her own parents, chose to demonize her and tell her to repress herself. 

However, children who are abused tend to internalize the words their abusers tell them. Children who are abused often believe they “deserve” their abuse because of their bad behavior. 

Now, I’m not trying to justify. I don’t think Toga Himiko is allowed to run around killing whoever she wants just because she was abused. My intent is to explain how her brain works. 

Toga Himiko doesn’t get to lash out as she pleased, but I think it’s important to understand that Toga’s lashing out is what makes her human. She’s not an inhuman monster, she’s a human reacting to circumstances. Most people exposed to ugly situations, react in ugly ways, and the few that don’t are the exception that proves the rule. 

My point being that Toga is not an insane monster that lusts for blood, she just believes herself to be one. The same way that Uraraka is wrong, Toga is also wrong at the same time.

Because as I said the above is right. Toga can’t live her life just lashing out. While it’s understandable, someone who has endured violence can’t keep lashing out violently forever. Toga’s choice to always lash out is just as unhealthy as Uraraka’s choice to always repress herself. 

Because Toga relies again and again on violence to vent her feelings, violence has become an inescapable part of her life. It’s also contrary to what she really wants. Toga thinks she wants violence, but the violence is just a reaction to the violent abuse.

Yes, Toga says all she wants is to drain people dry of their blood but characters are liars sometimes. 

Sometimes you can’t take a character at their word. Sometimes instead of reading something directly as stated line for line in the story you have to read between the lines. Toga says she wants to just kill people, but her internal thoughts contradict her.

What Toga needs is to be accepted, loved, and trusted like Uraraka is. That’s her deep internal desire that she states to herself when pushed to her absolute edge by Curious. What Toga thinks she wants is to drain the people she wants dry of their blood, so she can become them and live vicariously through them. What she thinks she wants is a life where she can do whatever she wants, and do as she pleases, in response to a life where she wasn’t allowed to do anything that she wanted. But, that again is a child’s idea of rebellion. It’s a response to her abuse, it’s not who she is. However, Toga’s personal development was forwarded not by killing people and draining them, but by the empathy and acceptance she showed towards Jin. 

There’s what she needs, what helps her develop into a more stable person, the empathy and care she shows to Jin. The acceptance Jin showed her in return. 

There’s what she thinks she wants, which is to just rebel against everything and always do what she wants in every single situation and accept no limitations on her personal desires. 

Toga is in fact just a normal girl, who wants to be accepted by the society at large, or at least find people who accept her. However, Toga doesn’t see herself as one, because she’s internalzied the idea that she’s the blood thirsty monster that everyone thinks she is. Which is why Toga contradicts herself. 

Toga in the same breath will say “I’m also a normal girl” and then “I’m a weird kid, I’m a weirdo, no one can understand me.” 

Toga cannot explain herself, because she’s wrong about herself. She’s making herself out to be a violent monster because that’s how she copes, the really really bad way she copes. It’s easier to be a violent monster, she’s more protected that way, then to be a runaway girl who’s just scared and alone. However, because Himiko can’t admit this, she also can’t explain herself to other people. She presents the monstrous version of herself and that’s all Uraraka can see. 

Neither Uraraka nor Himiko’s way of coping is sustainable. Uraraka cannot keep repressing herself forever, the same way Himiko cannot violently lash out forever. 

While what Uraraka says is very black and white, it’s not wrong. If HImiko is goign to live her life “Kill or Be Killed”, then she’s just as likely to end up being killed then she is to be the killer. There’s no happy ending to that kind of life.

However, there is no happy ending to Uraraka’s way of living either. Her perfectionist tendencies and her desire to only ever be good just aren’t going to work, because one a lot of bad things are going on already Uraraka just doesn’t see them, and two it’s not sustainable, Himiko was someone who held everything in too and look where that got her. 

Uraraka and Himiko’s talk failed because neither of them are capable of communicating right now. Uraraka can’t understand because she doesn’t try, and Himiko can’t explain herself because she also doesn’t try. 

Uraraka only sees what’s good about the world, about heroes. Himiko only sees what’s bad about the world, about heroes.  Uraraka sees the beautiful parts, Himiko embodies the ugliness. 

However they are both wrong because they are both short sighted. People are not just their shadows, and they’re not just their personas. They are both at the same time. 

A junagian shadow confrontation doesn’t end in a fight between good or evil. The shadow is not evil, the persona is not good. They are just two halves of the same person. Defeating a shadow does not make it go away. The shadow is something you have to learn to live with, the same way everybody on earth is flawed, and just tries to live every day working on their flaws the best they can.

The shadow is something that has to be reconciled.  Uraraka and Toga don’t have to defeat each other, they have to reconcile with one another. 

The narrative is pushing their reconciliaton because Toga and Uraraka both have what the other needs to grow. Uraraka is ignorant because she’s lacking experience. She hasn’t lived Toga’s experiences so she doesn’t understand her perspective. She doesn’t know, and she won’t know until someone explains it to her. However, saving as many people as possible means that Uraraka should also be open to trying to save people who react to abuse in ugly ways as well, because a person can be a victim and a villain at the same time. Uraraka will be a better hero if she’s able to see the flaws in her own society, because she’s a part of the next generation to reform society.

And Toga can’t become someone who is trusted by others if she’s violently lashing out all the time. The same way that Uraraka needs to see what’s bad about the world, Toga needs to learn to see what’s good about the world. The same way Uraraka needs to see both sides of the world, that of a villain girl and that of a normal girl. Toga needs to come to terms with herself, that she’s not a violent monster, but a normal girl. The only way she can stop lashing out and start actually taking responsibility for what she’s done and start on the path to self improvement is if she starts seeing herself as a person capable of improving. 

Toga wasn’t born this way she was made this way. She’s just a people, and people change. Toga can either try to change, or keep lashing out forever but at the moment she doesn’t even know that changing is an option for her. She thinks she’s going to be stuck as a monster forever because she was just born one. That’s why, Toga also needs Uraraka as much as Uraraka needs her. 

[tevanbegins]

The Schmico haters' reasons for calling Nico toxic are that he doesn't talk about his feelings, forced Levi to come out to his mom while he himself lied about being out to his parents, only uses Levi for sex, and is rude and emotionally abusive to Levi.

All these are invalid or exaggerated arguments, and below I have elaborated why:

1. It is not easy for Nico to talk about his feelings especially when he is forced to confront them against his will. He was probably raised to be practical and perfect all the time and he fears that talking about his emotions shall make him vulnerable. But in spite of this he always tries to communicate with Levi whenever he feels ready. He also always listens to whatever Levi has to say and never judges him for being too emotional. No two people are exactly alike and there are bound to be some differences between them that we need to respect, but what's more important here is that Nico is trying to work on his shortcomings and Levi is giving him the space he needs to do that. They are working on their issues through mutual understanding and this is exactly what healthy progress looks like. It is anything but toxic.

2. Nico never 'forced' Levi to come out to his mom. Yes he got a bit mad when he found out that Levi hadn't told her, but that was only because he knew how close Levi was to her and that he still lived under her roof. So he assumed that Levi would have told her about this important new development in his life. But he understood when Levi explained why he hadn't told her about it and they were good again. Levi came out to his mom several episodes later only when he thought he was ready and not because Nico forced him. It came as a surprise to Nico too when Levi did that because he was not at all expecting him to do it, and it brought tears to his eyes.

Another point to be noted, Nico has never lied about being out to his parents. He expressed his desire of wanting Levi to spend Christmas with his family as a joke and I think Levi got that, because it was very early on in their relationship at that point of time and neither of them knew how serious they would get about each other later. Hiding the truth is not the same as lying (and I don't remember anybody calling Derek a liar for keeping his marriage to Addison a secret from Meredith), so Nico is definitely not one. Nico's fears are not unfounded. He comes from a rigidly conservative Asian family and already knows how homophobic his parents are. He doesn't think that it is a safe space for him to come out. It is important to be mindful of the culture difference between Levi and Nico's families so it won't be half as easy for Nico to tell his folks than it was for Levi to tell his mom.

3. A handsome and gorgeous man like Nico would never need to 'use' anybody for sex. Taking comfort in the physical aspect of his relationship with Levi was his way of coping with his fears and to avoid talking about his parents. I agree that it was not a good thing. But if he didn't love Levi and sex was his only motive then he could have easily cheated on him or rebounded with some other guy after their break-up. He didn't do that. He came back to Levi only because he obviously still has feelings for him, it is just that he is struggling to confess them openly.

Nico suggested 'stress relief' because he not only missed being around Levi but also because he was concerned about him being at risk of getting COVID due to his medical history of Broken Heart Syndrome. He asked for Levi's consent that time and specifically told him that he could say "No." Besides, that act in the supply closet was more pleasurable to Levi than it was to him if you know how gay sex works. And Nico was surely bluffing about being incapable of love and affection (most probably to avoid confrontation about his parents or that new dream job he was pursuing) because his actions always prove otherwise – be it paying his full attention to Levi, giving pep talks, cuddling, giving a comforting hug, planting a forehead kiss, holding hands, etc. Him not saying "I love you" out loud a hundred times a day doesn't mean that he is not in love with Levi, he simply expresses his love differently.

4. Nico behaved rudely with Levi for a while after revealing that he wasn't out to his parents, but he was never emotionally abusive in any way. He was clearly going through a phase that frightened him and it made him suppress his emotions as a defense mechanism. So he emotionally shut himself out and was a little mean to Levi, but he was completely honest about what he could and could not offer him at that point of time in their relationship. An emotionally abusive person would make false promises of love to keep the person that they are involved with under their trap, and then continue to violate them. If Nico was like that then he wouldn't have chosen to break it off with Levi when he said that he wanted more from him. He thought it was better to end the relationship then than to give Levi false hopes when he himself couldn't make sense of any of his feelings. This is definitely not toxic behaviour.

It is okay if haters don't like Nico or Schmico because we don't need their validation to stan anything, but they should accept that this hatred is due to their own personal preferences and not wrongfully declare Nico to be toxic because they have been quite easy-going with other characters who have made way worse mistakes in relationships than he ever did. The hypocrisy is out there for everyone to see. But they have no right to spread misconceptions about someone else's comfort ship or characters based on careless observations. Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate. That's all. ✌

[padawanlost]

Jedi don't steal children. Ok. Anakin was a slave won in a rigged dice game but hey the Jedi can't be ethically held to getting Shmi out of slavery. Anakin grows up knowing his mother rots in slavery, but told to get over his constant, prophetic dreams of her death. The Tusken Massacre is all Anakin being Evil and the old Jedi are perfect (none of them know their mother's names).

Wow...there’s a lot to unpack here LOL

“Jedi don't steal children.”

To be fair, I don’t believe the Jedi steal children and, to be *really* honest, I’ve never seen anyone claim they did. I mean, there’s an actual ethical discussion about the Order’s recruitment procedures but this idea that the jedi are somewhat evil baby snatchers only exists in two places:

Canon: Some in-universe characters/cultures actually believe the Jedi Order steal babies.

Jedi hardcore fans claiming tumblr is overrun with Jedi haters who think the jedi are as evil as Palpatine. No middle ground. You either die a jedi stan or you live long enough to see yourself become a Jedi hater :P

When talking about the whole ‘baby snatcher’ thing, the discussion I’m interested in is the one about ethics and procedures. That’s what interests me. And when it comes to the jedi Order, it’s impossible to deny some of their procedures suffer from certain ethical shortcomings.

Look at it this way: imagine if your government passed a law that said a non-governmental, secretive, private funded organization had the legal right to access your newborn child and test them. In a world where parents throw actual tantrums at the suggestion of vaccinating their babies, can you imagine the shitshow that would happen if a similar law were even suggested right now? That’s what I’m talking about. If you look at the situation from a different perspective, considering the ethical and even cultural fallout of such procedures, it’s impossible not to think ‘hey, maybe there’s something wrong here’. that’s the nuance some people fail to grasp: it’s not about the jedi being evil, it’s about noticing some of their procedures needed improvement.

Tbh, I’m kind of tired of discussing the jedi because part of the fandom tends to completely mischaracterize the whole discussion. I’m too old to be constantly explaining that though I firmly believe shmi or the clones enslavement were unforgivable, I don’t hate everything and everyone connected to them. I’m tired of this fucked up tumblr mentality where you either love everything or hate everything, where you must be an anti or a stan.

Anyway, speaking of slavery:

“Anakin was a slave won in a rigged dice game but hey the Jedi can't be ethically held to getting Shmi out of slavery.”

Fuck yeah! It kills me how people are still trying to defend Shmi’s enslavement by claiming that trying to save her would’ve been unethical. I’m like…REALLY? It’s unethical for a sworn protector of the weak and abused to save a slave? this fucking fandom ¯\_(ツ)_/¯You know what else is unethical and an actual crime: child endangerment, like when you let a poor 9 years old kid subscribe to a known deadly race to save the *SHIP* of your wealthy, ADULT companions.

“Anakin grows up knowing his mother rots in slavery, but told to get over his constant, prophetic dreams of her death.”

Anakin is a whiny baby, I mean, who wouldn’t be okay with their only family being abused, enslaved, forced to work under two suns for a greedy, disgusting being on a desert planet? Anakin should just get over it. you know, let it go, man. Worrying about your mom is a pathway to evil and leaving people to rot in poverty, crime and slavery is how world peace is achieved. That’s why our real world is such a lovely, peaceful place filled with happy, healthy people…oh wait! Nevermind… -___-

The Tusken Massacre is all Anakin being Evil and the old Jedi are perfect (none of them know their mother's names).

The tusken massacre was an inexcusable, cruel action that no one should ever consider right. I mean, there’s a difference between understanding why Anakin acted that way and believing Anakin’s actions were righteous. I don’t believe the Jedi should be considered responsible for any of Anakin’s actions that night but I think we can look at the event as a symptom of a larger problem.

Responsibility is tricky, especially when your political/social duty is so ingrained in your own identity. I don’t blame the Jedi Order for *Anakin’s* actions because they were not directly responsible for those particular actions. However, they were responsible for Anakin himself, especially considering he was still a padawan. I mean, if the kid you taking care of kills someone on your watch you’re at least partly responsible. To put it simply, if a cop slaughters someone the entire Police Force should be put under a microscope. Not because they are ‘evil’ but because these kinds of events are usually a symptom of a systemic problem, especially when we are talking about recurring events (like padawans and jedi masters going dark side).

I don’t know believe we should go ‘oh tusken massacre was the jedi’s fault’ but we do have to recognize that Anakin’s ability to slaughter an entire community and get away it without any real repercussion shows their system was flawed. If we remember they had suspicions something had gone terribly wrong on Tatooine the situation becomes even more dire.

They suspected a member of their order had done *something* he shouldn’t have but somehow there was no investigation, no reports, no repercussions. That’s unethical and probably illegal behavior. People try to excuse it as the jedi being busy with the war but that’s like saying we shouldn’t investigate cops killing innocents because there’s a pandemic going on. It’s cruel. Not only it dehumanizes the victims and diminishes their suffering, it’s a behavior unbecoming of a group who exists to protect people from these very crimes.

Again, this is not about blaming everything on the jedi or ‘hating’ them. It’s about recognizing the situations where they could’ve done better.

[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)

[scripttorture]

I am writing historical fiction about Charles-Henri Sanson with as much reaserch as possible. My blank is: what would be the recovery time of a thirteen year old boy watching his father legally kill someone, watching a flogging, being forced to tie someone and being caned all in the same day?

Beyond what I could google I have no idea who this person is so keep that in mind as you read my answer. Also keep in mind that I am a pacifist and as such opposed to the death penalty. Which means my first instinct when I googled this guy and found he was France’s longest serving executioner was ‘Why?’ XD

 But I’m not here to dictate my personal taste or tell you what you should write in your stories. I’m here to help you portray torture and human rights abuses more realistically and respectfully. And hopefully give everyone a deeper understanding of these difficult topics as we go.

 The truth is that you’re unlikely to find one set recovery time for something like this because there is a lot of individual variance. Some children might be able to go through this one day without having lasting mental health problems. Others could develop PTSD in the same scenario. A third set might develop other serious mental health problems that are obvious to those around them and a fourth set might develop serious mental health problems that other people don’t notice or understand as mental illness.

 You might have seen me talk before about how torture survivors are a varied group and we don’t really understand why they develop different symptoms. We know the symptoms they could develop in quite a bit of detail but we don’t understand why particular individuals get particular symptoms from that list.

 That statement holds true for trauma survivors generally.

 Sometimes in a specific scenario you can say ‘this symptom is more likely’ but nothing is guaranteed. And as writers that gives us leeway to choose the symptoms that fit the character and story.

 Generally speaking trauma symptoms are more likely when someone is hurt or otherwise physically involved then when someone watches something traumatic. But witnesses can still develop trauma symptoms, including PTSD.

 Trauma symptoms are also more likely when someone has gone through multiple traumatic experiences. So this set of several different things happening in a day makes it a bigger overall risk.

 There’s a mounting body of evidence that says even low levels of violence against children have a profound negative effect. Most of the research I can link to focuses on younger children, especially toddlers. But the essential upshot is that a child who is hit will be less intelligent, less healthy, more prone to mental illness (including addiction) and less happy as an adult. This is compared to children who are never hit.

 And stuff like this makes it difficult to discuss things like recovery times. Because in one sense the recovery time is ‘never’: this child is beaten by his parents, therefore the damage is already done and he will be effected for his entire life.

 It’s probably important to discuss historical and cultural context in this scenario as well.

 There is no evidence that the legality of a punishment effects trauma responses in any way. Knowing that this is legal, even feeling that it is ‘right’, will not stop someone developing mental health problems when exposed to violence.

 But it may well effect how people express themselves and what these mental health problems look like.

 Thinking about this scenario I keep remembering the way torturers insist that their ‘work’ is important, essential. Even when they acknowledge that their health problems come from torturing others. They talk about how ‘hard’ what they do is and how isolated and unappreciated they feel. It’s a bizarre, self-obsessed sort of regret; they refuse to acknowledge the effect their actions have had on others while obsessing over their own pain.

 And stuck in a lifetime of the kinds of scenarios you’re picturing? I think that’s a likely outcome. I think severe mental health problems, and possibly given the era physical health problems, are likely.

 With that background, with this sort of thing happening all the time around a child, it’s almost impossible to estimate the effect of one day, one incident. Because these things are cumulative.

 I think that a child who’d never been exposed to violence before and is not exposed to violence again for the rest of their life could still come out of the scenario you’ve put forward with life long mental health problems. Although a minority could be lucky and make a complete recovery.

 But we’re not talking about one incident here. We’re talking about a family whose profession is violence.

 Which means that overall, over this character’s life, I’d expect mental health problems similar to those seen in torturers. Which you can read about here.

 And that makes me hesitant to give a recovery time. Because even if this character could recovery in a month, six months, a year- that wouldn’t matter if he’s exposed to more violence during that time.

 I think the best way to treat this is to pick 1-3 long term symptoms from the list I’ve linked you to and show this character developing those symptoms over time.

 We tend to have a rather extreme view of trauma survivors, painting them as either completely incapacitated by what they survived or superhumanly unaffected and resistant. The truth is somewhere in between.

 Recovery doesn’t mean that mental health problems vanish or that they have no effect on someone’s life. But people do improve. They learn to live with their conditions and they can go on to achieve incredible things.

 That recovery depends on being in a safe, supportive environment. It means being away from further sources of trauma.

 And based on everything you’ve said, based on the history and setting, I don’t think your character would get that.

 Which means that I think he would decline over time, gradually and without recovery. Not because of one day or one incident, but because these incidents would never stop.

Available on Wordpress. 

Disclaimer

[penny4yathoughts]

Resending it here :)

Inspired (prompted?) by the ask from your other blog about heterophobia and your answer. How do you think, is the situation with misogyny and misandry same?

The heterophobia post can be found here.

Just some quick definitions:

Misogyny: prejudice against women

Misandry: prejudice against men.

Now. This is strictly gonna be focused on personal knowledge and will be USA centered. I can't really speak for other countries.

But it feels like misogyny is more systemic, cultural, and social. Meanwhile misandry is more social and semi cultural.

I doubt anyone is gonna deny that historically there has been lots of systemic shit against women, their rights, and their autonomy. While there has been lots of steps forward in that regard there are still systematic structures in place that work against women. This kinda stuff is things like abortion, birth control, childcare custody, citizen ship for immigrants, paternity leave, etc.

On top of that we're still working on the cultural aspects of misogyny. Ie. Gender roles and ingrained assumptions. These tie into the more social things such as not getting a job because they think you're going to quit to have a family or you're too "hormonal," being accused of being on your period cuz you're upset, being considered weak, being forced to grow up sooner than male peers (this one has more stuff that factors into it tho), being more emotionally available, being forced to dress a certain way not for your classmates sake but because your male teachers might be distracted by you... A literal child. Not to mention the sexual assault numbers that are just down right disgusting. Plus the gross double edged blade where being a virgin is bad and not being a virgin is bad.

As for misandry, there are some laws in place that are pretty shitty. For example, longer prison sentences. We do as a society tend to physically punish men more harshly I feel like. But overall, most misandry cases are social or cultural. That's where toxic masculinity comes into play. It's completely true when people talk about growing up constantly being told not to cry and to man up causes them to hold in emotions making it hard to regulate them as adults. And women get the opposite side of things where they're told to use all their emotions for others well being-- be nurturing even at the cost of your own mental health. There's more examples too (such as not being taken seriously for sexual assault or demestic abuse), but they're easy enough to research. This post is going to be long enough as is.

^^^^ all of that said. These are cultural trends and ideas. Not everyone buys into them and a lot of people understand that they just don't make any sense in the first place. But that doesn't stop them from affecting people and even if you are aware of these things, you often still buy into them at least a little. This is because you were raised in a society with these ideas and you have to work against society to avoid them, which isn't always possible.

The biggest problem I find when trying to talk about all these issues with people is people not really willing to listen to either side. It's either "the world sucks for men" or the "world sucks for women." And if you try to talk about men people assume you hate women. If you talk about women people assume you hate men. And then you get a lotta hypocrisy.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen a man say "not all men" up until it's their daughter hitting puberty than it's "all men just want in your pants." Like if you want your kid to have a healthy view of men maybe instead of telling her to avoid any man cuz he's evil, teach her the red flags to look out for. Same for your son. Shitty people are everywhere. We should be teaching kids how to spot those red flags in anyone.

People just want an enemy. A group to fight against. Rather than actually looking at the truth. Shitty people are in every group. And odds are you're related to one of them. Stopping sexism against any gender isn't gonna be solved by telling someone all men are evil or all women are bitches. But people just don't seem to want to accept that the world isnt black and white. Especially since the two operate in different ways and need to be addressed differently with different audiences in mind.

You aren't going to solve domestic abuse against men and raise awareness of it the same way you're going to promote issues relating to women's autonomy. Honestly, you wouldn't even approach men's domestic abuse the same way as women's domestic abuse. Since people view the two so differently they'll need to be approached differently. The solutions aren't black and white either (tho they are tied to each other. Get women more autonomy and don't make them have to give so much emotional labor and it'll be easier for men to be independent emotionally. But you still gotta figure out the best way to do that).

Problems and solutions can't be condensed down into a perfect Twitter post that'll give you a buncha "woke" points. They need actual research and thought put into them by people who are willing to cooperate, work together, and actually look at all the angles since sexism has a lot of intersectionality tied to it (class, race, age, etc.). These things can't be treated like easy to digest sentences of who is right and who is wrong. And a big problem so the lack of people with different backgrounds and experiences running not just the government but also activists groups. On top of people online just trying to pin everyone against everyone.

Hope all of that makes sense. Let me know if you have any other questions. This post is already really long. But I'd be willing to talk in more detail.

[itsthenovelteafactor]

Superhero Gothic

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post (special shoutout to @jeyfeather1234 💛 ) about superheroes and gothic media! I know it’s been, like, a month, but here we go.

Here’s a bit of a look into some common gothic themes, and how they apply to Doom Patrol, The Boys, Watchmen (2019), and The Umbrella Academy. This one’s a bit long, not gonna lie, but I hope you enjoy! 

Part I: Let’s Talk About Gothic Media

There is not actually an all-encompassing definition for gothic media, or even a universally agreed-upon one. You’re probably familiar with some well-known gothic works (think Dracula, Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King) but there is a lot of debate on what exactly makes them gothic. 

There are some common themes in gothic works, though: families/characters under the control of a tyrannical paterfamilias, the crumbling of the established order/estate, long-buried secrets that have consequences in the present, and supernatural events that are stand-ins for/reflective of the emotional state/past actions of the characters. 

(Note: these aren’t all the themes of gothic works or even most of them, but for purposes here, I’d like to limit this analysis to them. I’d love to talk about other themes/ideas, though, if anyone has them. 😊)

So… superheroes (quick overview in case you haven’t watched any of them… spoiler warnings for the rest of this discussion)

Doom Patrol:

Five misfit superhumans attempt to rescue their mentor figure when he is kidnapped by an old enemy.

They are very, very bad at it.

Also features a singing horse head, a sentient nonbinary teleporting street (who is by far the best character) and the narrator is the fourth-wall breaking series villain. 

Beautifully weird but will also emotionally devastate you. Criminally underrated, tbh.

Watchmen (2019):

Story takes place after the canon of the graphic novel which is too much to summarize.

Alternate history (that should really feel more fictitious than it does) where white supremacist organization the Seventh Cavalry, masked police officers, and former superheroes in hiding all collide in Tulsa Oklahoma

Swept the Emmys this year and ABSOLUTELY DESERVED TO

The Umbrella Academy:

Washed up former child superheroes are forced to reunite when their father dies under mysterious circumstances 

Time travel, dysfunctional siblings, and a killer soundtrack

Basically a family drama with the superhero story as secondary (complimentary)

Probably the most obviously gothic of all of these it is aesthetic AF 

The Boys: 

Superheroes exist but they are corporate sellouts under the control of evil company Not-Amazon (AKA Vought)

Regular human protagonists try to hold them accountable for their actions with varying (read: usually minimal) success

Yes, it’s the one from those weird ads earlier this year

Billy Joel!! 

Part II: Niles Caulder, Ozymandias, and Other Terrible Father Figures

The Tyrannical Paterfamilias: 

Does not always mean a father figure explicitly, often relating to the notion of a patriarchal tradition, or family inheritance that plays a role in controlling the main characters. 

Sometimes, it is a father figure. 

Sometimes, it is a representative of patriarchal tradition/male head of pseudo-family unit.

So, uh, role call: 

Reginald Hargreeves (even in death) holds power over his children, and has shaped all of them into the adults they have become, and that drives the majority of the conflict. Each of the major character individually grapples with the after-effects of his abuse. Luther feels the need to be the leader and protect everyone and alienates his allies as a consequence. Diego constantly asserts himself as a hero (often to dangerous extremes) because it is the only way he was ever valued. Allison has to teach herself boundaries and responsible use of her powers after he encouraged her to abuse them for years. Klaus turns to drugs to cope with his childhood trauma. Five disobeyed his father with disastrous consequences and is constantly fighting to not become him. Vanya spent her entire childhood in the background, and never learned to assert herself in a healthy way. Thanks, Reggie.

Homelander says that The Seven are like a family. While whether or not this is accurate (it isn’t) is up for debate, he does occupy the tyrannical paterfamilias roles incredibly well. Homelander controls every member of the Seven, threatening them and their loved ones whenever they step out of line (read: do not do exactly what he wants in the exact way he wants them to do it.) He is also very closely tied with conservative/patriarchal rhetoric in-universe and at one point dates a literal Nazi. 

William Butcher less evil than most of the other characters on this list but the bar is also like, on the ground. Butcher tries to control the Boys in a similar way (Butcher and Homelander are character foils, okay? it’s actually pretty neat). He’s perfectly willing to sacrifice them in pursuit of his own goals, disregards their points of view and the well-being of their loved ones, and tries to cut loose anyone who disagrees with his methods (recall when Hughie tried to rescue his friends at the end of s1 and Butcher… punched him in the face? Yeah, that.) The difference is that the Boys can push back against his without being, you know, brutally murdered. (And also the Butcher isn’t a literal monster; I’m not anti-Butcher, okay? He’s an interesting character and the fact that he seems constantly on the verge of becoming that which he hates most is part of what makes him interesting.)

Guess what, folks? It’s hating Niles Caulder hours. He engineered accidents to turn the main characters into his test subjects, and then kept them conveniently hidden away in his large manor. Stole their autonomy and independence but paints himself as a benevolent father figure. And that’s not even including what he does to his actual daughter, Dorothy. He’s terrified of her growing up (read: becoming a young woman) and so he locks her away for almost 100 years and, when she is freed, yells at her constantly and makes her terrified of showing any signs of maturation (even though she’s 111 and clearly tired of being written off as a child).

The relationship between Ozymandias and his daughter, Lady Trieu, is integral to the final act of Watchmen. Heralded as the “smartest man in the world,” Ozymandias refused to acknowledge his daughter as his until he needed something from her. While Lady Trieu is more self-sufficient and independent than some of the applications of this trope, she goes to great lengths to prove herself, first to him, and then to herself when he rejects her.

Part III: Been a Long Time Gone (Constantinople) 

Gothic fiction is often associated with change, and particularly, the collapse of established systems of power. For example, many works like The House of the Seven Gables and The Fall of the House of Usher take place in old, crumbling manor houses. There is a reason for this! These kinds of estates are remnants of a past that is irreversibly gone, and their continued presence in decrypt forms serves as a reminder. 

Each of the four series takes place at a moment, either on a wide scale or on a personal scale (or both!), in which an established order is being questioned, and the constant reminders of that failed order are used to gothic effect.

The Umbrella Academy plays this most directly (In fact, there are TONS of parallels between the end of s1 of TUA and House of Usher that I don’t have the time to get into right now... lmk if you want that meta). We can see the Hargreeves mansion as a very literal example of this. While not worn down, the house is notably both very large and very empty. Shelves are filled with merchandise for a superhero team that disbanded over a decade prior, and portraits of a family that no longer speaks to each other. None of the family members ever seem truly comfortable or at ease in the house, and for good reason - every back corner is a reminder of their incredibly traumatic childhood. 

In The Boys, the story begins with the fridging death of the main character’s girlfriend, Robin, at the hands of a member of the Seven, a group of heroes so ingrained in the public consciousness that when they later hide out in a costume shop, literally every single costume is for one of Vought’s heroes. The Seven represent the system in power, which, at the disposal of Not-Amazon means corporate greed, shallow altruism, and the cultivation of public personas at the expense of actual humanity. 

From that moment on, the sheer presence of The Seven on everything from public billboards to breakfast cereal is a remainder for Hughie (and the audience) that this established system doesn’t work and is based on lies, which serves this effect on a personal level. In the broader scale, however, we also see that the Seven themselves are fracturing under an unsustainable business model. Even their name, “The Seven” starts to seem a bit dated when halfway through season one through the end of season two there are notably... less than seven of them. 

The main characters in Doom Patrol are all in recovery after the accidents that irreversibly changed their lives. We see through flashbacks the people that they used to be, and the difference is striking. They were each established in their own elements: Cliff a famous race-car driver, Rita a world renowned actress, Larry a hero pilot, Jane was involved in counter-cultural movements, Vic was a student and athlete. The foundations upon which their worlds were established are completely decimated by the accidents, and now they (save Vic and sometimes Jane) live mostly in isolation in Niles’ manor house, an estate that is far larger than would be necessary to comfortably house a group of their size.

And you feel the emptiness, both in the manor, and in the lives of the characters. They have barely created a shadow version of their own existence when the series starts, so fragile that a simple trip into town devolves into utter chaos. 

Angela Abar of Watchmen has also constructed a life following the terrifying act of terrorism on the White Night. It’s a bit of a double life, and we see that the balancing act is challenging for her, even before the story truly begins. The death of Judd Crawford, and the revelation about him that follows is not only traumatizing on a personal level (but it definitely is that), but also upsets her understanding of the world. People she’s come to trust are not just dishonest but truly monstrous. And the more Angela learns about what has been happening, the more her understanding of the world begins to unravel. Her memories, and the memories of those around her are cast in a much more sinister light, and the effect is genuinely chilling. 

Part IV: “I’m the Little Girl Who Threw the Brick in the Air”

In episode 3 of Watchmen, Laurie contacts Dr. Manhattan on the cosmic phone booth to tell him a joke. It’s a version of what TVTropes calls the “brick joke,” and it relies on set up taking place early on, other stuff happening, and then the response coming at an unexpected moment. 

So, yeah. Events of the past/buried secrets resurfacing with consequences in the present.

Continuing with the theme from Watchmen, the entire series is punctuated with the way the past and the present intertwine, with elements from both the original Watchmen graphic novel, and actual American history. One of the things we talked a lot about in my gothic lit class was the manner in which the overhanging specter of past atrocities casts a shadow over the present, and how many works cannot help but have gothic themes because there are so many horrifying things in the past that cannot be ignored, and provide both context and nuance for the discussions we have in the present. No series tackles these topics quite so directly (and with as much care) as Watchmen. (note: it does not always make for easy viewing, but if you’re in a place where you feel like you can engage with that kind of material, I highly recommend the show.)

In Doom Patrol, the past actions of the characters very much control the storyline (see: previous discussion of Niles Caulder), but the character whose storyline I want to talk about here is Rita (partially for plot reasons and partially because I just love Rita, okay?). We learn when we first meet Rita that in the past she was... not a great person. We know that the trauma of the accident that gave her her powers has changed her, we also know that she still holds on to the guilt and that her guilt has limited the scope of her world for years, but we don’t know what exactly it is that she’s done. 

Enter Mr. Nobody, all-powerful narrator who is not just aware of Rita’s greatest sins, but perfectly capable of manifesting reminders of them into the story. She is confronted with empty cradles, and the sound of crying children in the background of many scenes and we see how much it effects her, without a full understanding of why it does (see: The Tell-Tale Heart). Her past begins to haunt her physically, and she begins to crumble in response to it, until finally she is forced to confide in a stranger (and thus the audience). The past actions do not just inform the audience of Rita’s character - they show up to influence her behavior in the present. 

The ending of The Umbrella Academy season 1 is super evocative of the gothic genre with Vanya breaking open the soundproof chamber (wherein she was silenced for years) and rising from the basement to destroy the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy (which would be awesome if the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy didn’t include the rest of her family). Pretty much every mistake the siblings make over the course of the season feeds together to create the finale, but the primary cause isn’t something any of them actually did. It all ties back to Reginald Hargreeves’ complete inability to be nice to children. Any children. His own and random strangers that need help. 

In The Boys, while the extent to which people are making f-ed up choices in the present cannot be expressed enough, we see through the characters of Homelander that many of the present difficulties are a result of past mistakes. Particularly, the profit-seeking corruption within Vought. We learn in s1 through Vogelbaum that Homelander was raised in a lab by Vought as an experiment, only to be unceremoniously thrust into the spotlight and told he was a superhero (which... does not justify a single one of his actions but is still a major yikes). As the head scientist of the project, Vogelbaum is very aware that ignoring his conscious if the name of research has essentially created the biggest threat their world has ever seen. 

(Seriously y’all just stop raising your super kids in isolation) 

Part V: Put Them Together, and They’re the MF-ing Spice Girls 

Having the environment respond to characters’ emotions/mental states is pretty common in gothic works (it was a dark and stormy night = someone is probably not doing super well). One of the advantages of the genre’s tendency towards the supernatural is that, often, those elements of the stories, as well, are reflections of the main ideas of a work of fiction (see: Stephen King’s really unsubtle period metaphors).

Because all of these shows have a ton of supernatural/scifi elements by virtue of being, well, superhero shows, I thought it would be easier (and more fun!) to come up with a short list of elements, what they mean, and what cases they might apply to.

1. A Nonlinear Experience of Time

The Umbrella Academy: legitimately about time travel. Characters are attempting to fix the timeline but are unable to because they are both mentally and sometimes literally stuck in the past. 

Watchmen: In the episode This Extraordinary Being, Angela experiences firsthand the experiences of her grandfather, under the influence of a drug called Nostalgia. The episode touches on many themes, one of which being the impact of generational trauma in marginalized communities. Throughout the series, Dr. Manhatten is cursed with experiencing all time at once, and the episode A God Walks into Abar illustrates that, because of this, he is constantly facing the consequences of particular actions before, after, and while he is preforming him.

Doom Patrol: Mr. Nobody is able to physically travel to one of Jane’s flashbacks via his fourth-wall breaking powers, and gives Dr. Harrison an ultimatum for the future. 

What it implies: Events, particularly events that evoke guilt or conflict, are not as rooted in the past as one would like to think.

2. Powers/Abilities that reflect personal trauma/failings

Doom Patrol: Larry’s abilities/bond with the Negative Spirit have made it so that he is constantly covering himself with bandages/avoiding other people, which reflects his experiences having to hide his identity as a gay man in the 50/60s. Rita forced herself to walk a thin line, betraying everything in pursuit of her image; her abilities require constant effort to keep her entire body from becoming misshapen and out of control. Vic’s father with boundary issues can literally control his perception of the world through his cybernetic enhancements. Dorothy’s abilities manifest as imaginary friends because she was kept isolated for years at a time. 

The Umbrella Academy: pretty much all of the kids’ powers are representative of the interpersonal skills they were never able to develop. Luther is super-durable but also the most emotionally vulnerable of the group. Five can teleport and time travel but always seems to be too late to stop things. Diego can manipulate the trajectory of projectiles but cannot escape the path his father set out for him, not matter how much he resents it. Vanya always forced herself to stay quiet until the sound literally explodes out of her.

The Boys: Annie’s abilities allow her to control light, but she struggles (in the beginning) to bring to light the horrible things done to her behind closed doors. 

Watchmen: Not technically a power, but Looking Glass’ mirror-mask is a constant reminder of the hall of mirrors that both saved his life and traumatized him forever. 

What it implies: from a story perspective, these allow for an exploration of trauma/guilt to occur on a scale much larger than people simply talking about their problems (as if anyone on any of these shows knows how to talk about their problems...) It also means that the trauma/guilt of the characters takes on a physical form that is able to haunt them, and constantly remind them/hold them accountable for their past actions.

3. Diluted Sense of Reality:

Doom Patrol: The first season is narrated by its main villain, and throughout the season we see that the act of narration itself has an impact on the story.

Watchmen: The event that kicks off the plot of the story is hinged upon a paradox introduced by Angela near the end of the series when trying to speak to her Grandfather in the past through Dr. Manhattan.

The Umbrella Academy: The pair of episodes in season 1, The Day that Wasn’t and The Day That Was take the same point in time and explore two possible avenue for the future from there, with The Day that Wasn’t ending with the events of the entire episode being completely erased from the timeline.

What it implies: you can’t necessarily trust everything you see, even from the audience perspective, giving them a position not unlike that of the characters. The character’s uncertainty and confusion is magnified and reflected in the world that surrounds them.

Other examples: an apocalypse (The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol, Watchmen (of a sort)), ghosts (The Umbrella Academy - hi, Ben!), immortality/invulnerability (Watchmen, Doom Patrol, The Boys), and characters that look significantly younger than they actually are (The Boys, The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol). 

Part VI: Why Did You Write a Literal Essay Don’t You Have Real Schoolwork (yes... shhhhh...)

And... there you have it. I don’t really have some grand conclusion here. This is (clearly) far from a complete analysis but it is the most my finals-week brain can concoct at the moment. 

If you have other ideas, let me know! You can always add to the notes or message me – my inbox is always open!  If you got this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read this! Much love! ❤️