#emotion: mad

[spn-speech-bubbles]

[hyperlexichypatia]

As I keep shouting into the void, pathologizers love shifting discussion about material conditions into discussion about emotional states.

I rant approximately once a week about how the brain maturity myth transmuted “Young adults are too poor to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own” into “Young adults are too emotionally and neurologically immature to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own.”

I’ve also talked about the misuse of “enabling” and “trauma” and “dopamine” .

And this is a pattern – people coin terms and concepts to describe material problems, and pathologization culture shifts them to be about problems in the brain or psyche of the person experiencing them. Now we’re talking about neurochemicals, frontal lobes, and self-esteem instead of talking about wages, wealth distribution, and civil rights. Now we can say that poor, oppressed, and exploited people are suffering from a neurological/emotional defect that makes them not know what’s best for themselves, so they don’t need or deserve rights or money.

Here are some terms that have been so horribly misused by mental health culture that we’ve almost entirely forgotten that they were originally materialist critiques.

Codependency What it originally referred to: A non-addicted person being overly “helpful” to an addicted partner or relative, often out of financial desperation. For example: Making sure your alcoholic husband gets to work in the morning (even though he’s an adult who should be responsible for himself) because if he loses his job, you’ll lose your home. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/codependency-addiction-recovery.html What it’s been distorted into: Being “clingy,” being “too emotionally needy,” wanting things like affection and quality time from a partner. A way of pathologizing people, especially young women, for wanting things like love and commitment in a romantic relationship.

Compulsory Heterosexuality What it originally referred to: In the 1980 in essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493756 Adrienne Rich described compulsory heterosexuality as a set of social conditions that coerce women into heterosexual relationships and prioritize those relationships over relationships between women (both romantic and platonic). She also defines “lesbian” much more broadly than current discourse does, encompassing a wide variety of romantic and platonic relationships between women. While she does suggest that women who identify as heterosexual might be doing so out of unquestioned social norms, this is not the primary point she’s making. What it’s been distorted into: The patronizing, biphobic idea that lesbians somehow falsely believe themselves to be attracted to men. Part of the overall “Women don’t really know what they want or what’s good for them” theme of contemporary discourse.

Emotional Labor What it originally referred to: The implicit or explicit requirement that workers (especially women workers, especially workers in female-dominated “pink collar” jobs, especially tipped workers) perform emotional intimacy with customers, coworkers, and bosses above and beyond the actual job being done. Having to smile, be “friendly,” flirt, give the impression of genuine caring, politely accept harassment, etc. https://weld.la.psu.edu/what-is-emotional-labor/ What it’s been distorted into: Everything under the sun. Everything from housework (which we already had a term for), to tolerating the existence of disabled people, to just caring about friends the way friends do. The original intent of the concept was “It’s unreasonable to expect your waitress to care about your problems, because she’s not really your friend,” not “It’s unreasonable to expect your actual friends to care about your problems unless you pay them, because that’s emotional labor,” and certainly not “Disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to be visibly disabled in public, because witnessing a disabled person is emotional labor.” Anything that causes a person emotional distress, even if that emotional distress is rooted in the distress-haver’s bigotry (Many nominally progressive people who would rightfully reject the bigoted logic of “Seeing gay or interracial couples upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public” fully accept the bigoted logic of “Seeing disabled or poor people upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public”).

Battered Wife Syndrome What it originally referred to: The all-encompassing trauma and fear of escalating violence experienced by people suffering ongoing domestic abuse, sometimes resulting in the abuse victim using necessary violence in self-defense. Because domestic abuse often escalates, often to murder, this fear is entirely rational and justified. This is the reasonable, justified belief that someone who beats you, stalks you, and threatens to kill you may actually kill you.

What it’s been distorted into: Like so many of these other items, the idea that women (in this case, women who are victims of domestic violence) don’t know what’s best for themselves. I debated including this one, because “syndrome” was a wrongful framing from the beginning – a justified and rational fear of escalating violence in a situation in which escalating violence is occurring is not a “syndrome.” But the original meaning at least partially acknowledged the material conditions of escalating violence.

I’m not saying the original meanings of these terms are ones I necessarily agree with – as a cognitive liberty absolutist, I’m unsurprisingly not that enamored of either second-wave feminism or 1970s addiction discourse. And as much as I dislike what “emotional labor” has become, I accept that “Women are unfairly expected to care about other people’s feelings more than men are” is a true statement.

What I am saying is that all of these terms originally, at least partly, took material conditions into account in their usage. Subsequent usage has entirely stripped the materialist critique and fully replaced it with emotional pathologization, specifically of women. Acknowledgement that women have their choices constrained by poverty, violence, and oppression has been replaced with the idea that women don’t know what’s best for themselves and need to be coercively “helped” for their own good. Acknowledgement that working-class women experience a gender-and-class-specific form of economic exploitation has been rebranded as yet another variation of “Disabled people are burdensome for wanting to exist.”

Over and over, materialist critiques are reframed as emotional or cognitive defects of marginalized people. The next time you hear a superficially sympathetic (but actually pathologizing) argument for “Marginalized people make bad choices because…” consider stopping and asking: “Wait, who are we to assume that this person’s choices are ‘bad’? And if they are, is there something about their material conditions that constrains their options or makes the ‘bad’ choice the best available option?”

[demonhuntingcaterpillar]

Can I touch lightly on this topic? Have you ever loved someone that is emotionally manipulative? Someone who can mentally play you like an instrument? Have you ever had someone step into your life and slowly remove others from it? This person could have truly loved you, but loved you in a way that was so silently violent it changed you. Then, by the time you realized it and tried to pull away, you found pieces of them stitched into every part of you.

Now imagine after painstakingly cutting them out, stitch by stitch, they are thrust back into your life. Even worse, you realize you love them. No matter how much grief this relationship has caused you, you crave their love. Their fucked up love. You push away healthy love for this weird battle of wills.

I would throw us both off the cliff too. It makes perfect sense.

[tangledinink]

nooooo he’s having a medical emergency aaaaaaaaaa T-T

a last-ditch rally.

[ swanatello ] [ prev ] [ next episode ]

(... is sometimes the most effective thing.)

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 4)

—

Tw: descriptions of body horror, Dr. Crane has PTSD and Does Not Realize, Crane has an actual panic attack and just doesn’t care, the Riddler makes one (1) sex joke about Batman

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Pt. 1 here) (Prev here) - (Pt. 5 here)

(Masterlist here)

—

Dr. Jonathan Crane is in his lab, the acrid scent of chemicals filling the air, and his hands are shaking.

Danny’s health, for the first week that he had him, had been steadily improving at an extremely quick rate. However, his healing had begun to stagnate. Danny said that it was because his body had run out of ectoplasm, and that while there was a lot of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham, he needed a stronger type in order to heal.

And so, that led Dr. Crane here.

He had stolen the research notes from the Penguin years ago regarding his experimentation on him.

(He quite vividly remembers the sound of bone creaking and groaning as it twisted, lengthened. The squelching of shifting tendons and muscles, the strange fabric-like tightening of skin. The feeling of going from man to monster, of losing all claim to his humanity.)

Danny had called him Liminal, part ghost. He had said that he was transformed by, among other things, a kind of synthetic ectoplasm.

Danny needed ectoplasm.

Crane had the research notes. He had every ingredient necessary. And yet, attempt after attempt failed.

The chemical smell burns his nose. His hands tremble.

Dr. Crane is not afraid.

He doesn’t feel fear anymore. He’s tried to, many, many times, but nothing has worked. And yet, his hands are shaking still.

(The horrifying sensation of vertebrae pop-pop-popping along his spine, growing and lengthening. The unbearable itching beneath his skin as toxin glands begin to form. The feeling of his teeth sharpening and elongating, of his skull growing, of his vision changing and brightening. The awful stench of chemicals. The awful stench of ectoplasm.)

Jonathan takes careful note of his shaking hands, his blurring vision, his accelerated heart-rate and shallow breathing.

(Human hands. Human vision. Human heart and lungs and organs.)

He takes note of them, but he does not let that distract him from the task at hand. Danny is not a chemist, but Jonathan is.

The boy knows enough about chemistry in theory, but he won’t go anywhere near Crane’s equipment. He seems to have some sort of intense fear of laboratory settings, probably developed during his stay with the GiW, and Crane is willing to respect that, if only because he cannot afford to lose him.

As such, Crane is the only one qualified to do this. And, unfortunately, if he isn’t successful the boy may very well die.

He heats the chemicals to precisely the right temperatures, adding each one to its correct container.

Dr. Crane thinks of the Scarebeast, that creature born of cruelty and greed and a sense of superiority. That creature which he tries to ignore is a part of him, that can never be removed. A damage which cannot be undone.

He pours the contents of a small beaker into a larger flask, watching the liquids swirl together. The stench in the air is becoming closer and closer to the one burned into his memory.

Crane’s whole body is wracked with unpleasant sensations. It’s truly unfortunate, he thinks, that despite his mind’s lack of fear, his body still reacts so harshly.

Jonathan’s eyes wander, eventually settling on a purple and green card sitting innocently on the corner of the table.

Right.

Even if they wiped out the GiW tomorrow, and even if Danny could survive without ectoplasm, he would still be in danger.

Crane has to get him back to good health. It’s the only way he can be sure that the boy can defend himself properly.

The solution in the flask begins to foam, and Jonathan does not hesitate as he adds the final ingredient. He pours the mixture into a new container, capping it and placing it into a freezer set to -40 degrees.

Hopefully this time he got the timing right.

Jonathan tries to relax, the ventilation in the room slowly but surely clearing the familiar smell from the air.

He thinks of the letter.

Surely, he thinks, that man can come up with some better material for his jokes. Or, at least something new.

Same old threats, same old attempted poisoning.

Aiming his threats at Danny, though, that was new. New and utterly unacceptable.

Scarecrow did what he had to.

He doubted that his solution would last forever, of course, as with that man it never did. As such, he would prepare both himself and Danny for the inevitable moment that his choices came back to bite them.

However, for the moment, they were safe. Danny could rest and recover, and Jonathan could figure out a plan to minimize possible damages.

Jonathan is no longer shaking.

He’s exhausted. This is his fifth attempt today, and each one leaves an unfortunate strain on his mind and body.

With a sigh, he settles himself into his seat at a nearby desk, opening up his computer and logging his most recent attempt. He still has to wait for it to chill to know if it was successful, but he can always update the logs later.

Once he’s done, he stretches, joints popping loudly as he walks to the freezer.

When he sees the results of his tireless work, the ghost of a smile flits across his face.

Success.

Jonathan picks up the jug of ectoplasm and leaves the lab, which is in all actuality the basement of the new apartment that he moved himself and Danny into after receiving the note. The scrappy old woman who was his landlord had told him that as long as he paid her five hundred dollars up front, she would let him set up in the basement without any questions or cop calls.

And so, the most expensive apartment in the Narrows was his.

At least, he thought, the distance between the basement and the apartment was short enough that Danny didn’t have to sit in while he was doing his labwork.

Jonathan knew that he didn’t exactly have a strong grasp on the concept of ‘lab safety,’ proven by his built-up immunity to almost every toxic chemical he’d ever encountered, and he doubted that Danny should be around such an environment.

He was back to the apartment quickly, not bothering to hide the self-satisfied smile on his face. Danny is sitting in his armchair, trying to read one of his books. Danny looks up, ready to greet him, when he sees the jug in his hands and pauses.

“Is that..?”

“Synthetic ectoplasm,” Jonathan says proudly, “I found the Penguin’s research notes and decided to recreate it, since you said that you needed it to heal properly. I’m not sure if it’ll work the same as what you usually have, but I hope it’s helpful all the same.”

Danny is standing, now, and looking at Jonathan with a strange look in his eyes. He looks, Jon thinks, like he’s about to cry.

Then Danny is rushing forward and wrapping his arms around Jonathan, his scrawny form shaking.

Jonathan is, for a moment, horrified. Did he do something wrong somehow? Why is this child, who’s so afraid of touch, hugging him?

And then he hears Danny’s voice, and he knows that it was all worth it.

“Thank you,” he’s mumbling, over and over, “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Jonathan says softly, because what else can he say?

The boy cries in his arms for a while, and Jonathan briefly wonders what his life must have been like before, if a person like him can be seen as a comforting figure.

Then, Danny pours himself a small glass of the synthetic ectoplasm, putting the rest into the small fridge which had come with the apartment, and he settles back down, sitting in the armchair once again.

Jonathan sits opposite of him, and they chat with one another as Danny drinks.

Danny talks to him about the stars and tells him about different spaceships, and Jonathan makes sure to pay attention and ask the boy questions.

He doesn’t miss the way that Danny lights up every time he asks him something about his interests. He’s so passionate, so smart, a trait that he seldom sees outside of his fellow rogues, and Jonathan wants to encourage that.

It’s…nice. Peaceful, almost.

And then the front door flies open, because Jonathan isn’t allowed to have nice things.

“Jon,” a familiar voice rings out, “what the hell?!”

Danny is frozen in place, clearly terrified.

Jonathan heaves a sigh, turning to face the nuisance who’s entered his apartment.

“Eddie,” he drawls, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Edward’s face is red with anger as he invades Jonathan’s apartment.

“Oh, I don’t know! Maybe it’s the fact that you sent a bunch of rogues a cryptic message and then dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks! I was worried, Jon!”

Jonathan hums in acknowledgement.

“I didn’t think it was that cryptic,” he says, picking up a book in order to pointedly ignore the Riddler.

“Oh, of course you didn’t, you straw-stuffed hickory dickory dickhead. I swear, you’re always—” he pauses, finally having noticed Danny sitting opposite of Jonathan, “—who is this?”

“My apprentice,” Jonathan replies, dreading the upcoming headache he was no doubt going to develop from Edward’s company, “he’s helping me hunt down the GiW. His name is Danny.”

Edward gasps dramatically.

“You—an apprentice?! And you’re letting him sit in the old man chair?! You don’t even let me sit in the old man chair,” he wails, draping himself over the headrest of the couch with a flourish, “Jonathan, I thought I knew you!”

“Edward,” Jonathan says, “get out of my apartment.”

“Oh my goodness, this is incredible. You’re becoming the bat!”

“I am not becoming the bat, Eddie, now get out.”

Edward has a shit-eating grin on his face as he waltzes over to Danny. Danny, who seemed terrified when he first appeared, is now looking at him with obvious amusement written all over his face.

“I mean, look at him! The hair, the eyes, the scrappy build. If you put him in one of those traffic light vigilante costumes, he could easily pass as a Robin!”

“I’m not doing this with you today, Eddie.”

“Riddle me this, Jon: I am a treasure hidden inside of a chest. You can break me, or steal me, or give me a rest. I can flutter, or pound, or attack, or drop, but if you don’t have me, you’re certainly fucked. What am I?”

Jonathan pauses for a moment before he groans, dropping his head into his hands.

“Eddie.”

Danny sits still, a confused look on his face as he repeats the riddle silently. Then, his face lights up in delight.

“A heart!”

“Jon, I like this one,” Edward says with a smile, ruffling Danny’s hair, “you are correct! A heart, something that I wasn’t aware that our dear Jonathan had!”

“Eddie, stop.”

“No, no,” Edward says, “I was worried about you, you deserve this. I mean, you even missed girls night! You never miss girls night!”

“Girls night?” Danny asks, absolutely delighted.

“Oh, of course,” Edward says, sprawling over on the couch, dangerously close to just laying in Jonathan’s lap, “we have it once a week. I’m invited because of Selina and Jon’s invited because Harley likes him.”

“And what does girls night entail, exactly?”

“Eddie,” Jonathan groans, “please.”

“Well,” Edward hums, “we usually paint our nails, or watch a movie, or gossip about the other rogues, and occasionally, we tell each other about any ‘encounters’ we have with Batman,” he says, raising his eyebrows up and down.

Danny’s jaw drops.

“Edward, shut up,” Jonathan says, an irritated tone in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“No way,” Danny says, “I thought that Batman, like, hated you guys or something. You mean he actually..?”

“Oh, the Bat is much like a bottle of liquor or a cheap cigarette, in that he was made to be passed around.”

Danny chokes on air.

“Edward Nygma,” Jonathan hisses, getting out of his seat and looming over the man, “get the hell out.”

Edward pales.

“Leaving, leaving!” Edward says, dashing away from Jonathan. He pauses, turning to flash Danny a quick smile.

“Remember Danny, I’m your favorite uncle! Not any of the other rogues, me!”

With that, he leaves, the room falling completely silent.

And, as per usual, that silence does not last.

“You full-named him?” Danny asks gleefully, “and it worked?”

Jonathan just sighs, sitting down on the couch and rubbing at his temples.

“Please, don’t take anything Eddie says seriously. He’s a moron.”

“Dr. Crane, please let me come to girls night with you,” Danny pleads, his eyes sparkling, “I promise I won’t embarrass you.”

Jonathan groans.

“Of course you won’t, Eddie will do it for you.”

“Come on, please?”

“I think we’re a bit busy with the GiW at the moment,” Jonathan snaps. He pauses as he notices the crestfallen expression on Danny’s face.

This boy is going to be the death of him.

“Perhaps, though, when all that is taken care of…”

Danny cheers, grinning wildly, and Jonathan is not at all relieved to see him happy again. Certainly not.

The rest of the day is relatively normal.

Danny works on trying to get information from the GiW database while Crane refines his his fear toxin, both preparing for a raid on the GiW base they located in Gotham.

It was only a temporary base, nothing of note, but there was a chance of discovering more bases through it, and that wasn’t something either of them were willing to give up.

Still, something like this would take time. Rushing would only lead to failure.

…

Late in the night, long after Danny is fast asleep in his room, Jonathan pauses.

The GiW are not the only threat out there. They aren’t the only threat to him or to Danny. Perhaps it could be helpful to reach out to someone with greater resources than himself.

He sends a quick message to Red Hood.

Hopefully, he thinks, everything will go smoothly.

—

[kuroshika]

are we ready to talk about how hannibal knew what will might do on that cliff and still decided to sway his bodyweight so that he'd be holding will and taking the brunt of the fall? are we ready to talk about how hard hannibal tried to make sure if anyone survived the fall, it would be will? are we ready to talk about how, in hannibal's eyes, it was divine intervention because will is his god? are we ready to talk about

[peachymaryobrien]

2024? Idk, I'm still here

[gaysforbyler]

I still don’t understand how the fandom decided that MIKE was the more emotionally closed off one out of the two of them.

Mike, who spills his guts every time Will so much as looks at him in S4, who calmly explained to El how she hurt him after Will’s body was found in S1, who is famous for giving heartfelt monologues, and is literally seen as the HEART of the Party.

And Will, who lied to his mom about the mind flayer in S2, AND to Mike about the painting, just so he wouldn’t be a bother. Who pretended to like baseball just because it would make Lonnie happy. Who hasn’t told a single soul about being in love for YEARS, and would happily take that secret to his grave.

Yeah, Mike cries less. That doesn’t mean that he isn’t extremely emotionally intelligent, or that Will isn’t constantly suffering in silence. Mike works through his emotions logically, Will bottles them up until he breaks down. The only times Mike actually hides his emotions is when he’s scared. The only times Will DOESNT hide his emotions is when he’s with Mike or Jonathan.

[waitineedaname]

ritsu is so funny to me. he says shit like "I'm a completely normal middle schooler, I'm the utmost case of plain and simple" which is clearly something normal people say. he keeps a spoon in his pencil cup. and in his pocket. he got up in the middle of the night and did weird poses around the sink to try to make water float. he's a rude and judgy bitch but only in his head. when asked if he has friends, he responded with "I talk about the weather with pretty much anyone, so don't worry about me." he canonically doesn't listen to music. his brother thinks of him as his calm and collected little brother who always knows what to do, when in reality he's the most neurotic kid on the planet. he saw teru wearing a giant wig and thought "wow his brain must be so big." when he and shou first met, they beat the shit out of each other until he was knocked unconscious, and then when they met the second time, it was when shou came to his house unannounced and was like "hey do you want to help me kill my dad" and ritsu was like "okay. btw I think we have similar family trauma." he tried to zap a bug with psychic powers and then screamed for his brother's help when he couldn't get it. he used to cry as a child about spoons. his first instinct when seeing a spirit for the first time was to slam it repeatedly into his knee. he is the thirteen year old of all time.

[mindfulwrath]

columbo is a great example of a character who is empathetic without necessarily being kind or compassionate.

while columbo can be both kind and compassionate, it’s rarely towards his victims (i.e., the murderer of the episode)

but one of the most frequent ways he gets onto the killer, finds a spot to start digging, is because something they do pings as emotionally incongruous. they say all the right things with the right intonation, but their actions--often very small actions--don’t match the emotional state they’re projecting. columbo gets right up into that emotional state, feels it all the way through, and then says: now why would you do something like that if you felt like this?

so while he is methodical, dogged, and perceptive, i think his greatest detective superpower is empathy; specifically empathy-without-compassion, empathy-without-kindness. the ability to fully put himself in someone else’s shoes and notice, with laser precision, when they don’t fucking fit.

[cannibal-stag]

i like to think about them after the fall a lot. years after. will finally getting grey hairs to match hannibal’s, letting his beard grow out ever so slightly, just so it’s not stubble anymore. his arm having extremely limited mobility and hannibal having a daily ritual of helping will with physical therapy for it because he’d be damned if will couldn’t still spend long days out fishing by himself or wrangle the dogs when they got too jumpy. not that hannibal wouldn’t help will with any of those things if will found himself unable to do them. and hannibal would be terrible at enforcing the dog’s rules because he’d take to feeding them scraps and will would be aggravated about it but not really do anything to stop it because hannibal smiled whenever will scolded him. and will would wear the expensive shirts hannibal got for him because hannibal liked dressing him up and will would be lying if he said the clothes weren’t nice. and there would be fresh meat in their freezer but hannibal would move slower for a day or two after a particularly brutal kill because no matter how strong you are, pushing 60 will take its toll. will would learn how to use a blow torch for baking and hannibal would tie the occasional fishing fly. teacups would sit idle in the cupboards.

[skiaskai]

Trimax redraw but make it Stampy

[m0ucury]

Be sad now I command you 🧍

[redliferiot]

grian pearl and scott: none of us chose or even truly desired to win, rather, victory was thrust upon us like the cloak of destiny that we all don. victory was unwelcome and in some cases unexpected, it could've been anyone but it was us martyn: i murdered cause i wanted to win and i won cause i wanted to murder

[swedenis-h]

Change

[sarielsnowings]

Where are my fellow Gothic Fiction fans? Surely some of you ended up in here somewhere. Come out I need you.

I want to draw them more, please feel free to suggest scenarios. I feel like they need to interact. Let the fanfiction begin!

I even made a reference sheet for them and everything. I just need to practise some more. Let’s just pretend they’re my OCs.

Edit: there are now more doodles. Find them under the #Sariel's Victorian disaster men tag