#dont talk over and ignore victims of abuse just because you dont like them it makes you an asshole

[coriphallus]

The Dark Urge thoughts (and prayers)

anyone whos been following me knows im absolutely not normal about durge and i wanna share some tidbits that are implied, but not necessarily canonised, from their story;

I already made a post about it but it seems like bhaal has a degree of control over whether they live or die. he can deny them death, if they fail the duel with orin.

bhaal can command the slayer. he forces orin to transform if you talk to her about sarevok and the scene makes it clear that its against her will.

bhaal manipulates his kin in a subtler way. in the colony you can find a letter from old durge thats apologising to his father for 'liking' gortash. you can interpret their relationship as something deeper but even if it wasnt, this reads to me as terrified and desperate.

the reason being, if you have a LI in act 2 you get the famous bondage scene. coupled up with the letter above makes me think this is a pattern. bhaal can use their feelings against them. he did it with sarevok and orin's mother, orin's mother and orin, etc... it's not as straightforward as 'if you disobey ill kill the one you love'. you will. durge will.

bhaal is testing them in act 2, he revels in chaos, sure, but in the grand scheme of things he doesn't care about isobel. even if you tell scel that you'll kill her you're told that youre too late, you ignored your urges. from durge, bhaal doesn't expect calm calculated murder, he expects blind obedience. failing to receive that his first punishment is to take away something they cherish. there are no half measures, theres no bargaining with a god.

we get so many snippets of information that this has happened before, their foster family being their first victims. theyre made to kill their support system with their own hands, with no one to blame but themselves. they are actually apologising to their father for being fond of gortash because (in my humble opinion) theyre genuinely afraid.

how many times could this have happened, how many nights durge couldve woken up covered in the blood of someone they love until they gave in, became daddys obedient puppet?

durge is groomed for murder. scel says 'you always failed to conduct yourself without me' and given who he is i dont think hes talking about table manners when he says 'conduct'. durge needs 24/7 oversight to set themselves right lest they get tempted by softer things. lest they dare to step away from bhaals grand plan.

durge do have a choice. just as shadowheart had a choice, just as wyll or astarion had a choice. its a choice only in name.

theres no ending besides refusing bhaal that their friends and LI wont die by their hands. the entire lore of bhaalspawn is that theyre meant to conquer the world in his name and slit their own throat a top the mountain of corpses. as cazador aptly put, 'theyre made to be consumed.'

you can pray to bhaal and the narrator says he won't accept [any offering] but the entire world.

durge (and bhaalspawn) do get some sort of euphoria from murder. they crave it like an addict, but bhaalspawn (on prev games) don't constantly have to grapple with these urges as durge does.

now durge is a slightly special case but not in a good way. its implied that theyre not like a regular bhaalspawn, that theyre made by bhaal directly -so to speak-. which is to say, if youre playing a drow, they are bhaals closest approximation of a drow rather than a drow flesh and blood.

thats why theyre fighting tooth and nail against these urges every step of the way, they are literally bhaal himself(in essence). the personality they develop, the person who calls themselves 'tainted' and 'wretched', the character thats making choices throughout the game, theyre the tumour.

theirs is the story of cycle of abuse cranked up to 1000 and it is in parallel to all other origin companions.

[flower-boi16]

I find Blitz unbearable sometimes. I know it's only two seasons but throughtout the series he learned so many things yet everything still sets back to zero and he never changed from day one. This miserable man drowned in his past for so long that he can never grow. His trauma is his character. It's so boring man the same shit happened over and over with him crying about his exes, friends and family. I know about his current relasionship with Fizz now but I want this dude to change too not just Fizz.

Personally I dont really hate Blitz as a character. Of all the characters in HB he’s the one that season 2 hasn’t completely ruined. He is actually fairly interesting as a character, but some other people have already talked about the depths of his character so I won’t go into it here.

That being said, I really think the issue with Blitz is less about the character himself and more how the show seems to treat him, mainly in regards to Stolitz. Season 1 directly paints Stolas as the one abusing Blitz in the relationship (as it should), making it seem like the show is taking Blitz’s side here, that he has a right to be mad at Stolas and cut him out.

But then season 2 comes along and suddenly the victim and abuser roles are SWAPPED. Now the show is painting Blitz as the one in the wrong for “not loving Stolas” even though he has every reason to hate him, while Stolas is portrayed as nothing but an UwU soft boy. I’ve talked about this before but the show demonizes all the people that Stolas has hurt in some way, and it does this as an artificial way to make him look more sympathetic but painting the characters calling him out on his shit as in the wrong.

Blitz next to Octavia gets the worst of this, both in the show and the fandom. The Circus directly tries to frame Blitz as in the wrong because he apparently was the one who gave Stolas the wrong idea of the relationship, but that fails because that doesn’t somehow change the fact that Stolas is coercing Blitz into sleeping with him, and Stolas should be the one to accept that his delusions of Blitz loving him aren’t gonna be true.

Plus the line with Stolas saying that Blitz was his “first ever friend” feels like a major case of the writing guilt tripping Blitz into having sex with him for Stolas’s pleasure. Oops then tries further to paint Blitz as in the wrong by gaslighting him by having Fizz say “oh, you just hate him for being a prince”, and by then trying to make Blitz look like an asshole for not loving Stolas because Stolas did “so many nice things for him”…of screen, and “he cares for him!!”

This ALSO fails because just because Stolas did some nice things for Blitz OFF-SCREEN and cares about him doesn't somehow mean that Blitz has no reason to get mad at Stolas for once again, sexually abusing him. And yes, that is what Stolas is doing. Plus, none of these "nice things" lined up with any of their interactions in season 1 COMBINED with them happening off-screen, and it makes it feel like a retcon. They can victimize and UwUify Stolas all they want and portay Blitz as a big meanie UwU but it won't change anything.

Nothing will ever change the fact that Stolas is sexually abusing Blitzo, and Blitz has EVERY REASON to dislike him for doing that, NOT TO MENTION him BELLITTLING Blitz in season 1 constantly. YET the show demonizes him. And guess what? The demonization is only gonna get WORSE based on the trailer, where we litteraly have Stolas singing in front of a sign that says "Blitzo sucks", and the line "do ever feel any kind of remorse for what you do" which is said by Stolas.

It's so funny to me how fans will call US media illiterate for not understanding the "nuances" and "complexities" of this reletionship, yet they demonize Blitz and coddle Stolas, ignoring the things Stolas actually did to Blitz like the fact that he....ya know...constantly bellittles and is sexually abusing him, and getting mad at Blitz for "hurting Stolas' feelings". Meanwhile, we're actually the ones taking note of these things and rightfully pointing out that OBJECTIVELY, Stolas is the abuser here, nothing the show can do can change that and I am SICK of the fandom having this braindead idea that Blitz is somehow in the wrong for not loving Stolas. Because he's not. He's REALLY not. No amount of mental gymnastics can somehow change that.

[purgemarchlockdown]

All the stuff you want to talk about sounds really interesting! I'm ok with listening to you talk about any of them!

Thanks......my writing gets a bit weird when I'm sick so it might not be the most readable but like- Im so normal about the 0506 parallels Im so normal about them- I've written a Normal amount about the ways Shidou projects onto people and how he causes harm through that because he's ignoring what the other person wants and instead prioritizing His Own feelings and emotions

(My emotions are out of control, that’s inconvenient? I don’t care!)

But I was really sad about not being able to include Mahiru actually in the savior-victim post!!! Cause she does this Constantly! The whole of her first T1 VD is her making Es Increasingly uncomfortable because she won't Listen To Them. She doesn't Care about how they feel because Mahiru is focusing on how much She views love and she believes Everyone wants a romantic relationship even if they Just Dont Know it Yet.

(Funnily enough I'm aro so Mahiru's talking points make me extra uncomfortable in a way.)

Mahiru believes in an Ideal of romance, so when she interacts with Reality and the complications of it, that ideal breaks down. Because nothing can ever really truly live up to the fairytale ideal of romance (nor Should It, since those ideals tend to have some Extremely Horrible and Unhealthy versions of love and gender and sexuality that is damaging to people)

Mahiru says herself she can only speak in cliches. She's not Engaging with how love and romance actually are, she's engaging with the Ideal of love and romance she was raised by society to believe in.

This causes some Severe Conflict with her boyfriend. Mahiru Outright states she guilt trips her boyfriends and gets upset when he doesn't comply with her.

If you don't hug me, even our hearts will start drifting apart

This is Bad Behavior no matter what kind of relationship it is!

Y'know-it surprised me that people went with the stalking theory in T1 because if I wanted to campaign a reason why she should be voted guilty I would of pointed out her Abusive Behavior.

Because that's what this is! And it's hard to accept that when it comes to Mahiru! Because Mahiru is Kind and Sweet and Loving and Prioritized Her Idealized Version of Love and Her Emotions over Her Partner's Feelings.

It's easy to see abusers and people who engage with abusive behaviors as evil people who wake up one morning and decide to hurt someone. But that isn't the case a lot of times and I think it's important to recognize that!

Shidou and Mahiru project onto others and are callous as a result. But it isn't out of Malice, and I think that's really cool of Milgram to write them like that.

[carphoegras]

I don’t ship most of these myself , but your rant/ramble posts on Les Mis ships are funny so I genuinely wanted your opinion on these 👁

1. Enjoltaire

2. Valvert

3. Enjonine

4. Marisette (or whatever Marius x Cosette was called)

5. Javonine (Javert and…Eponine 😭)

6. Marionine (A name a just guessed for Marius x Eponine because I wasn’t bothered to look it up)

7. and uhhh.. Granjonine (I think that was the name)

well hello darling! i live to entertain lol lets get into it i might have to put this under a cut because i think its obvious i have a rambling issue

Enjoltaire : a classic for good reason. they seemed really base level to me at first because i watched the movie first, but once i read the brick and really saw their dynamic i fell for them HARD. for me the beauty of this pairing is really rooted in the substance of their individual characters as opposed to like a romantic relationship. idk its so difficult for me to verbalize why i love them so much i think i just love the idea of finding common ground despite difficulties. enjolras and grantaire mirror each other in such a beautiful way that i feel the musical/movie couldn't really capture without demoting it to a puppy love grantaire/mean enjolras dynamic idk i have such an issue with some portrayals of them because i feel like they create a victim/abuser situation where there wasn't one but that's like a whole post within itself anyway i feel like im getting incoherent i love exr with every fiber of my fucking being just read the brick if you don't get it ok the movie and musical just dont do it justice and for the love of god avoid the fics written in 2012/2013 after the movie hype its all wRONGGGG (i love you george blagden but you created a twink grantaire movement) (they pull each others pigtails okay its a mutual obsession) (enjolras why don't you just ignore him baby? glutton for punishment my dear we all know if you hated him you wouldn't let him hang around) (anyway) i should make a seperate post about my exr feelings bc i could talk ab them for hours

2. Valvert: okay this is where i feel like i can be unpopular with the fandom. i fucking hate this ship. like physically, spiritually, all that. its one of those that i kinda lose respect for the person bc its literally a cop/prisoner thing. its not enemies to lovers. its not a hate love thing. javert's a fucking cop. valjean is his victim. the whole idea of people romanticizing this makes me feel so insanely icky and i think the point of the story has just gone RIGHT over some folks' heads please take a step back and think about it. neolib behavior sorry not sorry

3. Enjonine: enjolras is gay. just like, straight up in the brick enjolras is a gay man. this ship is spawned from straight girls who saw aaron tveit and use eponine as their not like other girls posterchild. just a whole bunch of hetero nonsense. same behavior as the joseph quinn enj x reader bs. honey thats a homosexual man and can we please stop reducing eponine to needing a boyfriend she needs a stable home and a goddamn therapist fucking hell

4. Marisette: okay. i LOVE THEM. i'm a cosette stan myself, and i'm a huge fan of a gooey love at first sight situation. they contrast my love for exr in the sense that they're a very easy love. their parts in the book literally make me SWOOOOOON i can put aside my beef with marius as a combeferre kin to appreciate how sweet they are

5. Javonine??: im sorry wh aht. did the snape x hermione shippers leak into the lm fandom or am i being fucking punked im not discussing this its obvious why this is wrong please tell me its obvious y'all are NASTY

6. Marionine: eh. eh. i mean, like i said with enjonine eponine's problems are not gonna be solved with a dude. i'm really not opposed to them, persay, its just that eponine's love for marius is so incredibly dependent and rooted more in her personal trauma than actual love, so i feel a little weird with them sometimes. sometimes it just gives anti cosette vibes (cough cough bc of the bullshit love triangle angle that the musical markets cough cough) so i tread very carefully with them

7. Granjonine: again what in the damn hell. i'm not dignifying this shit they could be besties but for the love of god george blagden did a number on the straight girls. STOP PROJECTING ONTO EPONINE IM GONNA LOSE MY FUCKING MIND LEAVE HER ALONE

thanks for the ask lovely, i do love rambling even though these ships are baffling lmaoooo

[weebannihilator]

Yall will go fucking rabid, screaming and crying tripping over yourselves to make sure no one says the word ""insane"" but its dead fucking silent when those same people you're apparently "defending" try to advocate for themselves. And if not completely ignored, we're just talked over. Again and again and again. Sureee. Calling someone insane isn't nice i guess but for fucks sake can we focus on something that actually?? matters?????

Instead of trying to baby proof the internet from meanie bad words, maybe it would be more useful to focus on what you can start doing right now that will actually help:

Stop stigmatizing us.

If people were genuinely interested in helping us when they're barking the "don't say insane!!" rant, (They're not.) then it literally wouldn't take anymore than doing your own research to understand what and who they're trying to help. It can be hurtful, but someone calling me insane will never be anywhere near as harmful as the complete lack of even basic knowledge the public has about the disorders they like to stigmatize and laugh at. I can name so many just off the top of my head:

BPD (Borderline personality disorder) is extremely common. There are over 3 million cases every year. A majority of people who have BPD developed it because they were victims of early childhood truama or neglect, but the world has made it out that they're always going to be inherent abusers. Same with NPD. (Narcissistic personality disorder) It's painted that all of them are evil monsters, even though the majority developed the disorder after being abused themselves in childhood. (find a more in depth study/explanation here!)

Instead of focusing your "support" on telling people not to say insane, why don't you focus on visibility and acceptance for victims with disorders?

OCD (Obessive compulsive disorder) is an anxiety disorder associated with intrusive thoughts. Saying, "I'm so OCD" because you like to color code your pencils is careless sterotyping but an extremely common saying.

So why don't you focus on educating yourself/others when you make those mistakes?

Psychosis is common. It is not an illness itself, but a symptom. 3 in 100 people will likely have at least one psychotic episode in their lives, even those without disorders associated with it, after traumatic events. (Ex. like the death of a loved one or a natural disaster.)

So why don't you focus on normalizing reactions to truama? Even the "crazy" ones?

((For most of the extra information above^, I've linked Mayo Clinic webpages. They are easily accessible with accurate descriptions. They cover all symtoms and causes while still staying unbiased and offering support.))

I really could go on and on but this whole thing is just giving me a fucking headache. If you've been on the "dont say insane" bandwagon with absolutely nothing else to show, either shut up and stop pretending you have some moral high ground on illnesses you dont know shit about, or take a step off of your high horse and LISTEN TO US. If you're defending people with disorders, then learn from people with disorders and what we actually care about and need your support for.

We appreciate the effort, but if you're at all genuine about wanting to help, we need you to put that effort into what actually matters to us.

[mothwiingz]

Hate to break it to you, but that censorship post was talking about you.

Anti views are authoritarian. Censoring fictional works that contain topics you don't like (in general or a specific representation) or that you find disgusting is authoritarian. Either all fictional works are allowed or none are. Because as soon as you begin excluding certain topics, further topics will be excluded based on others' disgust.

You're jumping through hoops trying to separate the message of that post from proship arguments, but they are the same. It's being anti-censorship even if the content (or how it is handled) disgusts you personally. Delete your reblog if you don't actually agree.

1. imagine being so desperate to be able to romanticize pedophilia that you go out of your way to anonymously send a paragraph to a random kid online lmao

2. im not jumping through any hoops. they said “censorship because you find things disgusting is authoritarian” and i completely agree.

3. when will proshippers learn that it has nothing to do with disgust, it never did, and it never will. idc if people like disgusting stuff. if someones into things i find disgusting, i js ignore it and move on. we can still be friends, i aint judging you, nothing like that.

the problem comes when it causes people to be abused irl. if victims are constantly exposed to content portraying their abuse as fun and healthy and okay, like some kind of just extreme kink, then they will normalize it to themselves subconsciously over time. especially child victims. same goes for offenders. they begin to see it as normal. it allows them to feed into their desires, to justify the horrible crimes they consider doing. and im not making any of this up. this is what happened to me. i was exposed to proship shit and began to see the abusive relationship i was in as just a fun little taboo. he was almost 17, i was 12, and i wasn’t able to cut contact until i was 14. because the content id been exposed to had made it seem normal to me.

im not advocating for censorship. im not saying horrible shit shouldnt be portrayed. nothing should be taken down without a reason beyond “I don’t like it”. but it needs to be shown in a way that shows how horrific it is, and not in a way that makes victims begin to see their abusers’ behavior as something worth romanticizing.

im not going to be arguing abt this shit any further. i dont have time for discourse

[awellboiledicicle]

Astarion tried to shoot his shot IMMEDIATELY after we killed the guy sent to capture him. Like broke out the whole "i swear to you i just want to fuck" speech and everything when Hawke pointed out he didn't have to offer sex in exchange for literally feeding him so he doesn't die.

Then, and i need to emphasize, Gale was standing there the whole time. Who Hawke has been actively romancing. [ignore the camp outfit bug ok he's just rolling in his jammies and thats his choice]. And Gale looked perturbed the whole scene. Which made the very sad interaction very funny.

Not pictured is the second they handle the Hag and long rest, Hawke asking to have a serious talk to him about... that. Because he's seen desperation. Not like Anders has, but Anders also has pointed out to Hawke that he knows what someone getting on their knees to save their neck looks like. He doesn't want anyone in his crew to think they have to pay out sexual favors for basic protection from someone wanting to kill them. Or, in Astarion's case, re-enslave him.

And Astarion absolutely would not want to have this conversation. I'm talking the man considers using a spell to get out of the conversation. I'm talking he considers trying to bodycheck Anders [who flanked Hawke so he couldn't escape] and bolting for a bit. Like heavy consideration. He's 5'9" and Anders is 6'4", it could happen. But they would have the conversation.

He's not particularly swayed by Hawke patiently explaining that he's killed powerful slavers before, that it was literally half of his job for most of a decade. He's a bit swayed by Hawke explaining that he helped a close friend named Fenris kill his former master, after nearly ten years of helping keep slaver hunters off his back. Largely the sway comes in when Hawke lays out that he's willing to fight to the death--though that is not preferred-- for his companions. Because that lets Astarion feel like he's still got a chance for a foothold, still feels like he's getting one over on Hawke, while also not admitting to being a victim. Every time Astarion admits he was victimized, he tends to get very bitter and lash out verbally. Which is valid, that's what happens when you're in that stage of not knowing if you're out of an abusive situation or not. Hawke and Anders get to walk the very fine line of not making him feel like they're having pity on him, which is why they'd have to focus on the tact of "you don't owe me anything, i will help you stay free" as a matter of course for him fighting with them vs "i want to help you" as an offering of good will. Astarion doesn't know how to handle good will without it leaving a bitter taste in his mouth at this point.

The real emotional back and forth will happen in later acts, but I feel like the very tail end of Act 1 here, he's going to be in that headspace where he WAS panicking about Hawke turning down his one guaranteed strategy and then is less panicked but now kind of out of his element. He doesn't know how to befriend people. He knows how to manipulate, to an extent, but that doesn't work on Hawke, nor Anders. Especially Anders, because it'd be so hard for him to parse 'healer doesnt particularly care for me but will heal me anyway'. And honestly i think he'd not realize he was trying desperately to make a friendship happen until they were in the shadow cursed lands and Hawke was dragging him into the light because he naturally gravitates to shadows and didn't think about it too hard. Or one of the Harpers pegs him as a Vampire and Hawke plants himself between the two and talks the other party down because Astarion is one of his.

I also got the scene where he's looking in the mirror on the long rest, so i'm going to pretend they had the talk, slept, and then Astarion was in a better mood because he realized 'wait,, i dont HAVE to let Hawke bed me. or anyone?? holy shit wait' and was willing to joke with Hawke post- heavy convo. It helps that Hawke's comment was that he wasn't "Gale pretty", but he's fine. His response is to quip about needing more beauty sleep, to keep up with the competition. Friendly banter, a plus.

[cloudbrooksblog]

TRIGGER WARNINGS/content warnings: mentions of various commonly triggering things, descriptions of car-related triggers, many stupid "get over it" phrases that might be triggering if you're a victim of something, and also mentions of suicide, just read with caution ok?

yknow, I've been thinking about PTSD lately. Specifically people's reactions to me involuntarily displaying symptoms of it (dissociating, having flashbacks that make me cry, avoiding triggers, etc).

Most of this is from people who are related to my main abusers (my parents) but they don't react this way for no reason. They were raised in a culture that thinks this way.

The reactions are all similar: when I have an involuntary or instinctual response to triggers (like the ones I mentioned above), they say that I shouldn't let these things hurt me. Want a couple more specific examples, actually?

I avoid movies with car crashes and dissociate+sometimes have flashbacks when I hear tires or brakes screeching on the street. I start to shake if someone honks their horn near me, even in a parking lot. When I do this, INVOLUNTARILY (i cannot stress it enough), my brother will say that I let it bother me too much. Other assorted reactions I've gotten to this specific circumstance have been "you need to get over this one day", "you can't just avoid cars your whole life", and paraphrased, "you need to move on", "if this bothers you you'll never survive in real life", and "you're so dramatic".

That's just with car-related triggers for my PTSD. Don't get me started with sex jokes, cigarettes, talking about wanting to hurt children, etc. And DONT get me started about people's reactions to me wanting to cut off my family.

If I talk about any of that (when it naturally comes up, usually after questions about why I don't talk to certain people from members I'm about to cut off as soon as I don't have to depend on them,) the general reactions are that I'm like a ghost. Holding onto grudges that are just hurting me, that by holding onto them I'm hurting myself pointlessly, and that if i just *tried a little harder* I could live a much more peaceful and happy life. This is in reaction, let me remind you, to things like... me being uncomfortable around cigarettes. Me flinching when I hear sex jokes. Me leaving the room when people start talking about wanting to beat up kids and strangle them. I'm holding a grudge! I'll be encountering these things for the rest of my life!

That last one I get a lot, too. I'll be encountering these things for the rest of my life.

Let me tell you a secret. That's why I tried killing myself. That's why I've been to crisis facilities 6 different times. That's why I've made plans to move off-grid, to move to somewhere isolated, etc. But since I'm still right fucking here, obviously I'm not going to do any of that. So why point it out? Why point that out, as though it's not something you just WITNESSED my way of coping with?

Yes, I'll be encountering PTSD triggers the rest of my life. And every time I do, I will avoid them. That's why I don't buy into the whole "just try a little harder" angle. I'm not going to waste my time and my life trying to do that. This isn't a fear. This isn't a phobia. I don't sprint the opposite direction whenever a car honks and I'm walking on the sidewalk. I still have friends who smoke various things my abusers did. My PTSD still gets triggered by it, and I still get uncomfortable when they smoke. But you know what? They're my friends. They understand that and don't get annoyed at me for being uncomfortable. My friends who make sex jokes do it even though it makes me flinch because I've made it very clear: I'm going to react to them. It's not an insult. There's no need to feel bad. It's just nature.

When you tell me to get over it, it's NOT because you care. Convince yourself that it is, but listen closely: You're making it WORSE. And people with PTSD tell you that. And you ignore them, because you don't really care. Our PTSD just makes you uncomfortable and annoyed. It's inconvenient to think about and be around.

I'm not going to brute-force my way out of having triggers. It's just not happening. I'm going to have these involuntary responses. If you're my friend, you'll deal with it and understand the truth:

It's just nature :) deal with it. It's worse for me than it is for you, you selfish person.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

zutaras : Maiko is abusive cause she said, "I just asked if you were cold not for your whole lifes story." (clearly they never improve as a couple and remain static cause the beach aint canon so they can ignore zukos bad behaivor )

Zutaras: you cant use zukos past to define zutara but they do it consantly with mai and zuko first meeting katara is a 100 times worse

Zuko invades kataras village/ roughly handles her grandma/ nearly burns the women/children/ nearly runs over a child with his large boat zutaras: Crickets / he redeemed himself/ doesnt count/ season 3 he hired a hitman well thats OOC awkard/ shy baby zuko would never. but aang would def abuse katara and make her do all the chores

Zutara: aang displays predatory behaivor/ abusive behaivor /bad boyfriend behaivor

Zuko throws a man into a wall because mai was talking to his friend/ insults her/ tries to wrap his arm around her after snidly asking, "wheres your new boyfriend? Zutaras: Call the two times he kidnapped her romantic/ Quote a line where he knocked her out as romantic

(and i have yet to see a kataang label zuko a rapistcause we aint braindead and dont want to demonize a child we just point out canon and zutaras just hate canon for some reason)

Zutara: Mai is abusive /katara would never/ worse girlfriend ever /bringing up zukos behaivor means you dont support abuse victims mai saves zukos life: Zutara: OOC // she never feared azula/ mai is toxic/ aang goes to save katara: CLINGY/ BAD BOYFRIEND/ hes obessed with katara zuko saves katara: TRUE LOVE

aang lets katara go and goes into the avatar state zutara: Seems fake that never happened katara:suggest her and aang kiss in cave of two lovers zutara: OOC / This is only happening because their stuck/ katara is his mom Zuko/katara trapped in a cave together: TRUE LOVE UNITES/ they were meant to be see the symbolism

Katara tells toph she doesnt want to be seen as a mom Zutara: MOMTARA is canon if you tell us otherwise your sexist

katara and sokka pretending to be aangs parent= GROSS INCEST tho i recall aang wasa their grandpa once.. its almost as if katara is the only girl who can pass as somewhat older, toph sure couldnt.. its not that deep fam..

zutara: LOK is sexist cuase kataras a mom but if she was the mom of zukos kid it wouldnt be sexist because.. she loves politcs

this is why i cant stand the zutara fandom from the hypocrisy, the igornace of canon, ignoring kataras agency , the hate towards aang, the sexist hate towards mai, the handwaving of aang trauma the sludge i went through with the tags as a zutara shipper.. made me nearly hate the ship.. it waasnt kataang fans that nearly killed a ship/ ruined zuko for me it was zutara fandom. sure not everyone thinks that way but so many of em do and it ruined the fandom experience for me i had to block the tag i still ship but it have zero interest in a fandom that hates the show /main character/ heck im convinced 90 percent of em hate canon zuko /katara cause they sure never talk about their canon personalitys kts all just boring fanon to throw shit/aang/mai worse shipping fandom i ever met..

The only thing I'll disagree with is the point about Mai and Azula. While fear/intimidation/Azula being her princess before being her friend WAS the main reason why their friendship crumbled, it wasn't as simple as Mai being just her puppet. We literally see her deciding, of her own free will, to go help Azula in book 2.

She made a bad choice by joining Azula. So did Zuko. If anything, the complexity of "I cared about this person, but the relationship got toxic and I had to distance myself from them because of it, and now to make things even worse we're in opposing sides of a war" is something they can both relate to - hence Zuko not holding it against Mai, since that is a mistake he also made.

It's almost like they are compatible or something...

[thedroloisms]

yes theres no doubt a large disparity esp on here when other communities outnumber this one in size. I mean to say the new wave over-saturates this behavior, when they all share the common mindset of "at least my guy is not as bad as that one" they conform to putting a controversy in the back of their mind because they never expect their guy to be subject to that limelight or little things that get dream lambasted for because they take part in it. Making sure their punching bag stays as that only punching bag. And seeing it happen to them is such a foreign thing to experience, so they have find ways to cope with it even if it means to drag a name that has nothing to do with the situation. It's my thought process at least that the critical thinking the general community adheres to will always be based on bias and malicious take-downs to make themselves seem better to a wider range beyond theirs. Its so naturally performative too, their statements have like a veneer of snarkiness to it that you can clock right away. Using "she didn't say anyone so we shouldn't speculate" and ignoring the deliberate details she dropped, makes empathy look like a smoke screen to deny or not talk about the person who everyone knows is in plain sight. I understand its a sensitive subject to most people but seeing the evidence of her spoken word be accused of being associated with leak stuff in order to blame something other than their guy is so disgusting. So thats why in this situation, seeing the stark differences as an observer, I can't help but laugh too otherwise I would go mad.

i'd say in my personal experience, older fans tend to be even worse about the "my guy is a good guy and better than dream" rhetoric specifically bc they cling to their experience in choosing "the right side" as giving them a moral high ground. a lot of said people are specifically even invoking dream's name in terms of decision-making in this situation, basically saying "ohhh this situation isn't like the dream situation, if it was like that then obviously i would've dropped him" or on the flip side being like "we can't be like dream fans, guys, we have to Drop Him and call him an awful inhuman monster #fuckmen" etcetera whatever. obviously there are plenty of problems with newer fans as well but i've seen pleeeenty of people acting in stupid ways who were specifically here for the allegations against dream in 2022 (including something i saw earlier which made me laugh a little bit - someone going "look i cant support abusers i used to be a dream fan but then the allegations dropped and i stopped supporting him because i didn't want to look bad :( i dont support will gold anymore but i will continue to draw wilbur soot" like ???? okay) - i feel like new fans are more of an issue bc they take this attitude from older fans and parrot and amplify it, but honestly i wouldn't really say new fans are the root of the issue (though obviously their lack of supporting a Bad Guy in the past factors into their superiority complexes in the present)

while there have been quite a few idiots making this situation about dream (some people outright accusing dream, though honestly i think those people were just trying to deflect the situation onto their favorite punching bag rather than making an actual accusation - and a lot more people bringing up the dream situation specifically to soothe their own complicated feelings because Obviously they care about victims and Obviously they care about holding Bad People accountable) - i feel like the majority of what i've seen from people other than the copium is just a lot of people going all :( support shelby #believevictims don't speculate, which is. wow. crazy to me as well to consider it leak to ... talk about literally publicly available information? like leaktwt is when you listen to music lyrics now i fucking guess.

you really, really do have to laugh, honestly. i didn't know what to expect from this situation but my god, i did NOT think it'd be this bad

[stopscammingartists]

you know whats annoying about you? you refuse direct conversation so you can always easily ignore others words. boxley was never about him being embarassed or annoyed, its you consistently refusing what he asks of you because you want to run with your version of what happened over his. thats what this is about.

its you insisting boxley doesnt understand what his feelings are and that the contextless roleplay you love reposting is an actual personal conversation.

you listen to victims only when they agree with you. but when someone you beleive is a victims disagrees then their words are wrong. you have demonstrated this repeatedly.

if boxley said things you liked youd have no issue coddling up to him for a free supply of new reasons to hate glip, when he proved he wasnt going to do that all your performative care evaporated.

you talk about how your only reason for still being here is to protect victims, i dont believe that. you clearly have more reasons than that for this kind of behavior.

i dont beleive you ever cared about boxley as a victim, you care about him as a topic to leverage against glip, and that is why you cant let it go.

if you cared about boxley, even if you beleived he was wrong, you would make an effort to keep him out of your public discourse, make an effort to connect him to resorces that may help. you have done nothing of the sort.

im not interested in your whataboutism about how glip ignored X victim at Y time too. answer for your own actions. make an effort to stop ignoring the words of others.

you know whats annoying about you? you refuse direct conversation so you can always easily ignore others words. boxley was never about him being embarassed or annoyed, its you consistently refusing what he asks of you because you want to run with your version of what happened over his. thats what this is about.

Yeah, okay buddy.

Need I remind you that one of the victims who are with us directly conversed with Glip and Pengo in a chain of emails recently? You know, the email chain where Glip changed their story from them raping 1 dog to them raping 2 dogs? Surely you know of it.

Oh, and, just so we’re clear, if we didn’t want people to talk to us, we wouldn’t have a whole blog open for anonymous asks. You are talking to us directly right now, just in a more email-like fashion.

The floraverse community and Glip themselves have pushed the narrative of our blog being terrible people who do not care. Pengo has compared us to Nazis and white supremacists for fucks sake. The well is poisoned, and you think us to be dumb enough to reach in and drink from it and privately talk with y'all? Fat fucking chance.

As for Boxley, Boxley hasn’t provided any evidence pointing to a different story. They have access to the same tools we do when it comes to archiving information, so if they really want to tell the ‘real’ story they can. Unfortunately for Boxley, ‘our version of events’ are how things happened. If they don’t like that, maybe they should recognize that, and really think about what that means for the environment they exist in.

its you insisting boxley doesnt understand what his feelings are and that the contextless roleplay you love reposting is an actual personal conversation.

Abuse is not just the ‘feelings’ of a victim. It is a set definition of poor behavior and mistreatment towards an individual, and what happened to Boxley fits right in. Here, viewers, see for yourself. Does this look like roleplay? Does this look kind?

We have provided multiple sources indicating a victim is very often unaware of their own mistreatment until they are shown otherwise by outsiders or when their abusers pushes the envelope too far in their abusive behavior.

As for this ‘contextless roleplay’, we’d be glad to have the full context in full, unedited screenshots. But that means you have to provide that context, and since you’re too busy sucking off Glip and co, I guess we’ll have to wait for it. But, since you decided to send a public, performative ask instead of trying to submit the screenshots showing said context, I have a sneaking feeling that context doesn’t exist. So that leaves us with just that archive, and, man, Glip sure sounds like an abusive tyrant to me.

As a side note, the scene isn’t even a real roleplay either. There is no ‘role’ being played here, they are acting as themselves, just without the handy dandy Floraverse-patented soft bitch filter. Roleplays involve characters. Roleplays do not handle real baggage between people. This is not a re-enactment, this is Glip letting loose their frustrations in the meanest, cruelest way they can.

And for the record- 'roleplays' tend to not come with fucking homework at the end of it.

you listen to victims only when they agree with you. but when someone you beleive is a victims disagrees then their words are wrong. you have demonstrated this repeatedly.

Hmm, yes, the floor is made out of floor. I’m sorry, do you regularly say the words of somebody you disagree with are right? The whole concept of agreeing and disagreeing is whether you think a person’s words and stance are correct or incorrect. You’re ragging on us for…disagreeing with victims.....But where does that leave Glip? Who disagrees with the victims that run and support this blog?

By your own logic, not only is Glip and co doing exactly that but you are as well. You deserve an around of applause for that level of density.

Oh, by the way? Listening is required to argue with someone. Like the thing we’re doing right now to your own words, or the thing we have done numerous times with other victims. Like the thing we have done time and time again with Boxley himself.

if boxley said things you liked youd have no issue coddling up to him for a free supply of new reasons to hate glip, when he proved he wasnt going to do that all your performative care evaporated.

No? Boxley already gave us free reasons to hate Glip whether we like them or not.

I don’t give a flying fuck about having new reasons or chances to hate Glip. There's plenty of that already. I care about people staying far, far away from the cesspit the dogfucker calls home.

Also, hey, stupid, we severed ties with one of the people in our group, another victim of your community, as we refused to let them harass one of your own. You know who I'm talking about.

you talk about how your only reason for still being here is to protect victims, i dont believe that. you clearly have more reasons than that for this kind of behavior.

And what exactly is your reason for making a public ask to state this? It must be to call us out, right? That’s why you didn’t bring any receipts and didn’t bother to research the situation at all, right?

Hm. Clearly you have more reasons than that for this kind of behavior.

Believe what you want. Based on the way you’ve conducted this message, I really don’t care what you have to think or say. Your delusions are not my problem.

i dont beleive you ever cared about boxley as a victim, you care about him as a topic to leverage against glip, and that is why you cant let it go.

Funny you mention that. For the past few months every single mention of Boxley beyond the site is because the asks sent talk about him. Usually by an unfriendly anon who is clearly in the Floraverse community. Like you.

In fact, you were the one who brought them up again. You and the other anon asks care a whole lot more about Boxley as a topic than we do. And I say topic because you don’t seem to care about Glip putting Boxley through that abuse. You guys only talk about how Boxley doesn't consider the behavior abusive. Never having anything to say about Glips behavior itself. What? Is it that you recognize that there is no defending Glips cruel, abusive behavior here?

This isn't the Floraverse server. Your lapdogging isn’t going to fly here.

if you cared about boxley, even if you beleived he was wrong, you would make an effort to keep him out of your public discourse, make an effort to connect him to resorces that may help. you have done nothing of the sort.

First off, actually we did provide resources to Boxley, time and time again we provided resources on how abuse can happen without the victim recognizing it. We also have resources on recognizing cult behavior on the website. Boxley knows it exists and knows how to find it, they just don’t care to believe or bother to look into those resources. The fact that they have ended up having interactions with this blog is proof enough they know where to look if they need assistance.

Second off, the victim’s wishes are very important in most circumstances. This is not one of them. Let’s go over the facts, shall we?

Boxley wants the logs purged for the sake of Glip and co

The logs were not given to us by Boxley nor were the logs made by Boxley. These logs where made by some nobody because your fucking server, and the channel this happened in is essentially public.

Boxley is still buddy buddy with Glip and co and is not in any trouble or danger from these logs being out to our knowledge

Based off of what we know and what we’ve seen in the various floraverse servers, and also based off of the fact that Glip makes private issues extremely public (Jolly and Rina say hi!), we have confidence to say that Boxley is not only not going to be harmed by these blogs keeping up beyond delusional people harassing them (which, by the way, we’ve always condemned) but that keeping the logs helps support our claims significantly enough to matter. We’ve put more thought into this one decision than you have this entire ‘callout’.

We're looking at the bigger picture here and that our focus has always been on letting people know how dangerous the Floraverse community is. We're not going to let evidence of that go for the sake of people still participating in the cult and hurting people through their participation.

im not interested in your whataboutism about how glip ignored X victim at Y time too. answer for your own actions. make an effort to stop ignoring the words of others.

It’s a good thing we didn’t bring any whataboutisms up here, huh? Oh, by the way, caring about people’s words isn’t a one way street. You can’t say you don’t care what we have to say and then expect us to give a fuck about what you have to say. I’m only doing this because I think it’s really funny to tell off a stupid person for being stupid.

Funny thing about accountability, anon. It’s universal. You telling us to answer for our actions means that Glip and co have to as well, and that means going beyond paper thin apologies that amount to nothing. You have to be consistent for your callouts to be worth a damn, and I have a funny feeling that you are about as consistent as our weather up north is. Feel free to prove me wrong, though, and ask Glip about how they feel about Opa sexually assaulting Jolly by showing them his genitals without Jolly's consent. Or why they lied about Iz's VN being about Rina's childhood sexual assault. Or why they lied about it only being one dog.

I find it hilarious you call us out for ignoring peoples words when you’ve ignored entire, vital pieces of a situation just to make your performative ask look more authoritative.

There’s a statement you made earlier that I want to round back to. You claimed that you knew that Boxley is what this is all about. While that is obviously incorrect, I think I’ve figured out what this ask is all about. You’re not here to actually provide criticism, are you? You’re not here to sway people’s minds, either. You’re here to be a big show-off about just how loyal you are to Floraverse and how you can take it to the Big Bad SSA, aren’t you? Enjoy the good favour while it lasts, anon. Lapdogging is never sustainable.

[selamat-linting]

so anyway, back to bitching again (i always bitch) yall know the women's group? the one i talked about? yeah so a little backstory first for the newcomers: this girl, she was a former member of a branch of my org. she was from another town. when she moved here, she's supposed to be helping my branch right? but no, she broke off with no warning, and started a women's group with her friends. thats the group im talking about. they focus on producing art / writing as a form of their resistance. with the occasional charity event in-between. its a very laid-back almost apolitical group. my girl plans to push her friends' left by meeting them on their own terms. doing resistance the way theyre comfortable with and hoping it would influence them to be radical.

suffice to say, it failed. my girl is kicked out of the group she founded, and when i offer her to go back here, she doesnt want to. claiming this town is too far gone for any meaningful resistance. my feelings on that loaded response is well documented on this blog but anyway. lets go to the present

this group is now doing another event, a talk show about mental health. now this would be good except the topic is this, "self diagnosis: valid or not" featuring a fucking psychiatrist.

i dont know, maybe because im a victim of (mild) medical neglect from a psychiatrist, and im firmly anti-psychiatry after seeing how lucky i got compared to my comrades with a more stigmatized disorder, but this is just wack to me. idc.

like, first of all, in what world that a discussion of whether self-dx is a special topic of discourse to be treated this way? girl look at the state of our healthcare system. look at how we lack a social safety net. look at how there's practically no help for abuse and bullying victims. we dont even have a homeless shelter in this town! look at how many mental health workers that still treats homosexuality as a disease or asks child abuse victims to forgive their parents. look at how the criminal system treats addicts!!! look at the prisons! by god look at the prisons!!! prison inmates are prime examples of men and women who is failed by the state over and over again and end up hurting and abusing everyone around them, fueling the cycle anew.

youre putting the cart between the horse, by discoursing about self diagnosis when you havent even talked about how bad society is falling apart and how inefficient and inaccessible the healthcare system is. and im not just talking about the money, i know treatment's free, but is it really treatment when you have to wait four hours every two weeks just to meet an out of touch doctor for five minutes who'd just tell you to forgive your abuser then dose you up with potentially addictive medications without telling you the side-effects or even listening to your concerns?

also wow, inviting a shrink for a self dx discussion. i would bet money their stance is that theyre against it because heyyy therapy is free and covered by national insurance uwu and its your personal responsibility xoxo. very neoliberal. i always suspect their politics is as progressive as a gay conservative since they decided not to make a post acknowledging pride month when they personally call themselves a feminist collective. how come a group of college-educated women could be this unserious? unprincipled? eugh. i expected better of them than the empty headed dumbfuck boys who made a metalcore concert for a day where at least a million people died by the hands of the state but turns out theyre just a different flavor of annoying and ignorant.

but i guess i have to act professional and nice around them since they did agree to help for the pro palestine campaign. i hate this fr fr!!!!!

[nuclearpoweredsniper]

i don’t have a particular opinion about the michael jackson situation because i don’t really know enough about it, but i’m VERY curious; why do you have such strong opinions about it? /gen /lh

OMG... omg youre my best friend now anon. thank you so much for asking and being interested it genuinely makes me rly happy.

i have strong opinions abt it bc those allegations ruined his life and ultimately ended up killing him, and they were ALL completely false. in both the 1993 and the 2003 trials, there was not only zero evidence found whatsoever indicating he did anything untoward, but there was actually evidence indicating that the parents were financially motivated liars and just wanted michael to cut them a check. theres audio from a phone call between evan chandler (father of the alleged 1993 victim, jordan chandler) and jordans step father where he straight up says shit like "if i go thru with this, ill get everything i want, he'll never sell another record". the arvisos (2003 trial) were known scammers, gavin arvisos (alleged victim) mother completely made up the story that he had cancer and was also caught trying to extort other celebrities. this isnt even the half of it.

the child abuse allegations are completely founded on lies, and those lies ended up destroying michael jacksons life. and to me its a disgusting display of just how selfish and greedy humans can be, bc they saw this man who opened his own home to families all over the world, who gave what he had to help others, and they used his trusting nature against him. he was a good man whos only real fault was that he was naive and thought the world had the same good intentions as he did and i think its utterly foul to go around calling him a pedo, when hes not even here to defend himself, bc of the bullshit the media peddaled. i HIGHLY reccomend the documentary square one, last i knew it was free on youtube and it talks all abt this stuff, and was made by michaels nephew taj.

tldr: guilters are my only DNI bc i think you have to be willfully ignorant and even cruel to believe he ever harmed those children after being presented with the facts. in the 14 years ive been a fan, guilters have only ever been bullies who dont actually care abt the safety of children, they just like picking on a dead man and his fans. if they cared, they wouldnt crack the jokes they do at the expense of victims of CSA. ive been harassed by groups of them before, they mocked me for having substance abuse issues and sent me horrible memes making jokes abt him assaulting children. imo theyre not good people and i dont want them near me.

[barefootbaltimore]

Last night a friend of mine made a comment about how my family if full of terrible people and we ended up getting into a pretty heated disagreement about it.

Because on one hand, yes, i have a lot of shitty people in my family and a lot of people who have hurt me over and over again. I have PTSD due to my childhood. I have attachment trauma. I may never fully heal from how i was treated by the adults who were meant to be caring for me.

But on the other hand they're also the ones who chaperoned my school trips, and woke me up to have pizza in the middle of the night when they got home from work. Carried me to bed and sang with me in the car. They pretended to be the villians in DBZ so us kids could defeat them and took us to Disney.

My feelings about my family have always been and will always be complex and I dont need someone who doesn't know them to boil them down to the villians of my story because most of them are not. They are the victims of their own stories and they didn't have the tools or the time to heal enough to save me but that doesn't mean I hate them for it. They hurt me and they were hurt and breaking the cycle doesn't make me better than them. It means i had the tools and the time.

This isn't an excuse for how they treated me. Far from it. But it is an acknowledgment that now that i am older than any of them were at the time i can see how truly young and desperate and ignorant they all were. I pity them. I wish that i could go back and provide myself but also them comfort and support and love.

No one but me and the other children I grew up with can ever know what it was like. It isn't their place to comment on my family or my healing. I cannot hate most of those people even if i also do not associate with them. I love them because i know that more than anything I hope they are also healing from those terrible times. And maybe they haven't. Maybe they refuse to change and continue to hurt people. I hope that isn't the case but I dont know them now I knew them then and i loved them then.

Abuse and love and trauma and family are not always black and white. Respect peoples stories. Don't insist that you know better than them about their own past, their own family. Just like it is unhelpful to point out ways someones family is good when they tell you about how awful they are, it is equally unhelpful to remind someone about their abuse when they talk about the good times. We know. We lived it.

[always-andromeda]

um. so. ive been thinking over my past relationship, and i dont know if im in the wrong for hating my ex or not? like. he wasnt very affectionate, which is just how some people are, i guess.

but the only way he tried to be at least slightly affectionate was by talking about sex, A LOT. like, every single day. like, sure, he could be sweet, but that was only in the beginning of our relationship. later on, he just. stopped being loving in any other way aside from sex.

all he complimented me on was my looks. he said he liked my personality, but then ended up saying i was unfunny and insufferable later on. i dont know if they were jokes or not, is the problem.

but heres the thing that pisses me off the most. he pretended like he was gonna break up with me, knowing it was one of my worst fears, as a joke. he said something along the lines of "i prank you once and you suddenly act like im the worst person in the world." like. we had taken a break from our relationship only a couple months prior to this, and it took a fucking TOLL on my mental health. he knew this. and yet he pretended he was leaving me anyway.

and then he actually broke up with me like. a few weeks later i believe. and he completely ignored me after that. i didnt get any comfort, besides one single "im sorry".

im just wondering if im in the right for hating him, because he was just clearly unhappy in our relationship near the end, and the feeling was mutual. and maybe him being unaffectionate was just his personality and he had a hard time showing love. i dont know. sorry this was so lengthy ack

Okay, so sorry this took me a hot second to reply to Ethan!! I really wanted to offer up like my full attention to really answering this in a meaningful way. Because just reading through this reminded me so much of the situation-ship that I was in when I was a teenager. Sadly, I think a lot of us are prone to falling into these kind of relationships when we're young and don't really have much experience with romance or any other kind of intimacy and it's a real tragedy.

TW for descriptions of emotional abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, and mentions of sexual harassment below the cut because whoo boy this is gonna be a long one.

In my situation, the guy completely drained me of everything. He would encourage me to vent every single feeling and thought I possibly could. But as soon as I took it to heart and dared to talk about my day or something that was bothering me, he'd go, "Did I ask?" or "Didn't ask."

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of the sexual shit. The guy had a girlfriend who didn't really know anything about sex. So he'd make sexual jokes to her and make me explain their meaning to her, knowing full well that I had feelings for him. Then he'd turn around and make jokes and conversation about my own sexuality. Like as soon as he figured out the daddy issues thing, he went nuts with it. He immediately used sex and my insecurities to deliberately fluster me and make me uncomfortable because he knew it would only make me cling closer to him.

I went through almost three years of him upping the ante on his bullshit to the point where I was completely codependent on him. And even now, close to three years removed, I'm still unlearning some of the shit he instilled in me.

I don't think it's wrong of you to hate him exactly? Like there's often this narrative that gets pushed on victims to "forgive and forget." And for some, that may be beneficial in order to obtain peace of mind. But that isn't a one size fits all solution. Sometimes things just haunt us and we learn to live with it. Which might sound terrible un-motivating. And sometimes it is! Because there's a lot of work required for untangling these situations and trying to find something of value in them. Because they shouldn't have happened in the first place. But they did. It isn't fair that it happened, but it did, and I don't think you're a bad person for not being able to just swallow that.

I myself can never forgive the guy who fucked me over, mostly because he didn't just do it to me; he also did it to one of my best friends. And for her sake, that anger and defensiveness flares up and in a strange way, it allows me to process my own feelings. Because if I don't think she deserved that treatment, surely I should be able to muster up that same love for myself? Perhaps I should be able to advocate for myself with the same, fervent kind of love.

Because people who do that kind of shit–people who deliberately hurt you over and over again–they do it because they want to put you in a cycle where they can say and do whatever they want, all while knowing completely that you'll go right back to them for that validation. In my experience, it's those folks that are so sad and so ridden with insecurity and dysfunction that they derive enjoyment from doing this to people. And I'm not talking about people who maybe suddenly blow up before realizing their mistake and apologizing. I'm talking about people who take joy in hurting you. Those are people who will always feed on your sympathy and your willingness to see the good.

Whenever I found myself trying to humanize my abuser after everything, I started reminding myself that no matter what low point I've been in...I have never done the things he did. Sure, I may have been more short with people or a little less thoughtful and isolated myself. But I never once made that my excuse to deliberately and repeatedly hurt the people who love me with no remorse. So, no, I don't think it's unreasonable to hold to negative feelings over him. There's no one size fits all prescription for navigating these situations. It's all about what we can live with. For me, I can live with knowing that if I ever saw my abuser again, I probably wouldn't throw hands exactly, but I most definitely wouldn't be smiling and singing Kumbaya with that fucker.

However your brain and your heart chooses to receive that experience is completely up to you. Because at the end of the day, it is your experience. And you tell yourself and do whatever you need to in order to live with it. I love you, Ethan. Please please please be gentle and kind with yourself, bud.

[jonathangoodbyers]

here's my Long Post about Billy:

Billy Hargrove is a very interesting character because he is a victim-turned-perpetrator. It's clear that he suffered in his childhood but that he also hurt a lot of other people. From a psychological standpoint, his actions make a lot of sense. (I should say that my credentials are that i'm majoring in psychology and it's a pet interest of mine, especially personality disorders. But don't take my word as gospel, I only kind of know what I'm talking about).

Basically, I think Billy is showing early signs of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). I say early signs, because aspd is generally only diagnosed in people over the age of 18 and Billy is 17/18 throughout seasons 2 and 3. Furthermore he doesn't actually meet all of the criteria (as far as we know).

Diagnosing fictional characters with any psychiatric illness should be done with caution, mainly because fictional characters are, well, fictional. They were written by someone and their actions have been planned out for them, a real person obviously does not function the same way. Diagnosing someone irl requires a much deeper understanding of that individual and a much broader picture of who they are, you can't get all the facts from a tv show, basically.

tl;dr: disclaimer: this is just funny littol media analysis dont take it too seriously

ASPD criteria: Billy Hargrove

The DSM-V lists these criteria for aspd, of which at least 3 have to be met in order to warrant a diagnosis.

- Failure to conform to social norms and laws, indicated by repeatedly doing illegal activities.

- Deceitfulness, indicated by continuously lying, using aliases, or conning others for personal gain and pleasure.

- Exhibiting impulsivity or failing to plan ahead.

- Irritability and aggressiveness, indicated by repeatedly getting into fights or physically assaulting others.

- Reckless behaviors that disregard the safety of others.

- Irresponsibility, indicated by repeatedly failing to consistently work or honor financial obligations.

- Lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another person.

Other than these, an individual has to be at least 18 years old, they have to show signs of conduct disorder before the age of 15, and their behavior is not better explained by schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

In Billy's case, it is unclear whether he could have had conduct disorder as a child, as we see very little of how he behaved before the start of season 2, so I'm going to ignore this criterium. (In a real diagnostic interview you would of course ask questions about this and try to get a solid idea of someone's history but we can't do that here).

Billy also does not show signs of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Failure to conform to social norms and laws, indicated by repeatedly doing illegal activities.

Billy is not shown committing many crimes, he drives recklessly and gets into fights, but other than that, we see very little of this. Billy does not commit theft, nor do we see him abuse hard drugs or frankly do anything that could get him arrested (besides speeding and assault). He does show patterns of law-breaking behavior in this sense, but it is relatively limited.

Deceitfulness, indicated by continuously lying, using aliases, or conning others for personal gain and pleasure.

Billy is not a particularly deceitful person, but we do see him twist the truth on occasion to gain favor with others. Prime example is when he is out looking for Max and he ends up at the Wheeler's house (season 2). He tells Karen that he is 'worried sick' about his little sister and acts oddly charming towards her. We know that this can't be entirely true, as he later tells Steve that he thinks Max is a bitch. Billy is capable of putting on a charming persona if he needs someone to like him, as opposed to when he's interacting with people that he dislikes, where we see him behave in a more hostile manner, intimidating and insulting people.

Exhibiting impulsivity or failing to plan ahead.

Once again, it is hard to tell. I would say that the scene where he almost hits Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Will with his car is a decent example of impulsive behavior. In the moment, he is trying to scare Max into compliance, but he is probably not intending to actually hurt the party. It is impulsive in the sense that it is dangerous and he doesn't seem to care much.

Irritability and aggressiveness, indicated by repeatedly getting into fights or physically assaulting others.

This is a hard yes and I don't think anyone will disagree, but I'm gonna explain anyway. Billy is happy enough to get into a fight with Steve, he is frequently seen snapping at people (specifically Max). Before he gets flayed in season 3, when he crashes his car, his first reaction is anger. If Max doesn't immediately do what he tells her to do, he gets angry. When the kids lure him into the sauna to test if he got flayed, before he knows what's going on, he's already threatening to kill whoever is messing with him and that's before the mind flayer even takes over. Billy instinctively responds to any potential threat or unsatisfactory situation with anger and hostility.

Reckless behaviors that disregard the safety of others.

Again, the scene where he almost hits the party with his car comes to mind, and his driving in general. We do see recklessness, but I think his limited screen time is mostly the reason why we don't see it more often.

Irresponsibility, indicated by repeatedly failing to consistently work or honor financial obligations.

This does not seem to be accurate for Billy. At his lifeguard job, we do not see any signs that he isn't taking it seriously. Because of his age, he doesn't seem to have many financial obligations that we could look at, but I think that Max is arguably one of the biggest responsibilities he has. Although Billy is mean to her, he does (begrudgingly) take responsibility. Even if it is not much more than driving her places and babysitting.

Lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another person.

This one is complicated because we don't see either remorse or a lack thereof with most of his actions. He beats up Steve, passes out and then it's never really mentioned again. Max threatens him with the baseball bat, he seems to accept that he can't push her around anymore and that's the end of it. He doesn't apologize, but he also doesn't explicitly not feel sorry for what he did. When he's locked in the sauna, there is a moment where he breaks down in tears saying he didn't mean to kill anyone and that 'he' (the mind flayer) made him do it. I personally believe that this was genuine and not some trick from the mind flayer, but I think it is up to interpretation. It is also a dubious example of remorse for his actions, since they weren't really his actions.

Can Billy be diagnosed with aspd?

ehh,,,? maybe? I think he does show some very clear symptoms but we really don't have enough evidence to make a hard yes or no decision. Assuming that his behavior that we see on screen is representative of how he always behaves, I would say aspd is the most likely diagnosis.

What I find so important about this is that personality disorders are not incurable or necessarily chronic. A lot of Stranger Things fans see Billy as an irredeemable evil villain, but from this perspective, we see that he is a person with an illness, who needs help and most importantly, who can get better. Billy shows patterns of bad/antisocial behavior, but those patterns can be broken.

I think analyzing characters like this is important because there are plenty of people in the real world that are just like Billy Hargrove, and those people deserve compassion and help as well.