#for the third fucking time in your life

[insomnya777]

Two weeks. That's all it took. 

Two weeks of being in Scar's debt. Two weeks of being stuck on a desert with a madman. Two weeks of the sweltering heat and an insufferable man. 

That's how long it takes Grian to fall in love. 

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[jinxofthedesert]

I recently got out of a toxic and unhealthy friendship on here. I had to be the one to end it; hopefully the other party decides to leave it be and not smear my name due to realizing it wasn't healthy and that I had to end it because of it.

Basically, if someone makes you start feeling like shit, from your life, to your goals, passion, and everything else, then it's not a rewarding friendship. And it's hard to sometimes see it in the moment. Because you want to think the best of peeps, especially ones you care about.

But sometimes the healthiest thing for You is to know when to put your foot down and end it, even if it hurts you and them. At the end of the day, you matter and what you're doing matters and no one has the right to make you feel shit for who you are when you're just living your life. Life is hard enough without adding peeps who make you feel that way or question how you live when, prior to them showing up, you were happy with all of it.

To anyone in a relationship or friendship like that, I hope, like me, you are able to take a stand and realize you deserve better.

I knew I was being manipulated but not how much until I talked to others close to me. I pray you all never have to experience such a thing because damn, you know you did the right thing, but feel so fucking guilty at the same time.

But your happiness matters. You matter. Please remember that.

[merverelli]

👼🗡️ toddiel, the golden sword of the inconquerable dawn. 👼🗡️

[chemdisaster]

god i can't fucking stand people who come into a community having an issue with someone and decide to make it everyone else's problem. as someone who's been both the victim and the server owner forced to sort through their dirty laundry - quit trying to guilt mods into banning people you don't like. quit asking them to be the judge and jury of your interpersonal issues. you are on the internet. you have a block button. use it. the world doesn't fucking revolve around you.

[see-arcane]

I might have pitied this deformed woman

With all due respect ACD why is everyone calling someone with a limp deformed... Also to be honest I would have felt more horror from the story if Gilroy found her attractive and/or charming and enjoyed her company and work relationship but also did not love her for whatever (non-physical) reason, because then there could have been a potential inner conflict and guilt, instead of ''this is out of my hands she is icky-looking and a crone (Gilroy you are 35) so I have no self-doubts about being in love involved on top of it all yay''. Having him vehemently dislike her all the time minus during hypnosis removes those layers.

It isn't 'everyone' in the story who calls her deformed, though. It's just Gilroy. No one else is mentioned deriding her for her disability or her looks or anything else beyond Penelosa's talent.

Considering ACD's comparatively progressive track record with the Sherlock Holmes stories--a series notable for how often it takes the side of oppressed parties, including abused or preyed-upon women--I can't see Gilroy's ageist and ableist views as anything but an intentional setup for the narrative payoff of his disgust as well as his anger and fear.

The story does feel slightly karmic at the start and, to give ACD the benefit of the doubt, I agree with you that having Penelosa not be an attractive hypno-dominatrix likely played a part in Gilroy's initial revulsion at her controlling him into playing paramour. I think this was intentional for the character's buildup, but also for the audience's. Even in the present day, there's no ignoring that there are demographics out there who are Highly Interested in the erotic implications of hypnosis. BDSM for the brain, puppet master kinks, et cetera.

If Miss Penelosa had been hot, or even just pretty, I wouldn't have been surprised if the horror story ACD was trying to put together would lose much of its punch in his era's audience. Sure, it's still icky that Gilroy's a man being Controlled By a Woman (!!!), but having her be attractive would 'soften' it for them. Still, all this is only in play if ACD was really truly adamant about selling the horror of 'A Stranger Now Owns My Free Will and Is Planning to Violate My Life in Intimate Ways.'

It could also have just been intended as an eerie scientific*** what-if adventure applied to a then-popular (and wildly overestimated) practice of the time. Or maybe he meant it as a straight-up supernatural escapade in the vein of vampiric mesmerism from a psychic monster. I don't know, I can't ask him.

All of that said, the horror is soured a bit by Gilroy being a haughty skeptic snob who had some comeuppance heading his way in the first place. Similar setups are common in horror flicks today, where we get to cheer at least once in a movie when the Big Villain takes down a more commonplace bad guy. There's no scare there, just vindication.

And me being me, that's not enough. Because I am all about two things.

One, adding more horror to everything, always, forever.

Two, making life harder for Jonathan Harker.

Jonathan 'Holiest Love means I Will Walk Backwards into Hell to Protect/Stay with My Wife Whether She's Mortal or a Literal Monster' Harker is not about to shit on anyone for a bad leg or some crow's feet.

More importantly, we've already seen his reaction to sexy sexy undead ladies trying to hypnotize him into compliance so they can take certain bloody/eternally conscripting liberties with him.

To judge by the 1000+ Dracula adaptations that show the directors' fetishes in full view, Jonathan being preyed on by the hot vampire Brides is seen by many people as...you know. Hot. Enough to rewrite and bastardize his character every time to make him seem like he was genuinely tempted by them.

But He Was Not.

He was being hypnotized into artificial attraction and paralysis so the ladies could take their turns with him without his fighting back or trying to run. Which he does later! More than once! Every time this voluptuous trio tries to hypnotize or corner him again, Jonathan catches on and sprints in the other direction. He is not into that shit no matter how pretty you are, ladies.

Specifically because, as I and Bramothy Stoker cannot stress enough, Jonathan Harker is strictly Minasexual. All Mina all the time. 24/7 Mina lockdown 365 days of the year. Mina, Mina, Mina. Mina? Mina. (I personally headcanon him as demisexual with shades of biromanticism and ace, but that's beside the point.)

The point is, even if Penelosa was a knockout, Jonathan wouldn't notice. He wouldn't care. Just as his love would not have been stopped by Mina turning into an actual monster; he would rather be damned and in love than slay her and be holy. You can bet your ass if Mina suddenly had a handicap he'd still be enraptured with her to the point of blasphemy. You know he's going to still be heart-eyed as they grow older. Jonathan Harker is made of unconditional and extremely focused love. It is all-encompassing and yet it belongs to a single person. It's the kind of love we all wish we had for ourselves.

It's the kind of love that someone like Penelosa--who latched onto a random handsome prick of a professor after she had known him LESS THAN AN HOUR and started plotting to groom him into her personal Ken doll--would do anything to have for herself; Jonathan Harker, the true Prince Charming, the gallant beloved, the guileless charmer who holds the One He Loves above himself, above God and Devil and the world itself...being wasted on some pretty young thing who hardly needs such a treasure.

It isn't fair. Mrs. Harker will never appreciate dear Jonathan like other, more deserving women would. Not like her. She would show him. Help him through the motions until he learned better; learned to love in the right direction.

Her direction.

Only if given the opportunity, of course.

(👁)

In short, yeah, Gilroy was not the best option for a sympathetic horror story protagonist who we could feel real fear and empathy for. We only really get a glimpse of that toward the end, when Penelosa escalates enough to start injuring innocents and tries to make Gilroy throw acid in his fiancée's face. A big scary leap, but also too late in the game for a proper punch. Especially with the abrupt copout of the ending. Bleh.

I think we can do better than that. Say, with a protagonist who can balance on the pro-and-con line of keeping the supernatural puppet master of their life happy enough to not act rashly, who knows the value of dancing on eggshells in a tight spot, who could tug the heartstrings of villain and audience just enough to let fuller and far more frightening machinations come to light as time goes by.

Especially with certain other powers lurking in the shadows, which might make a trifle like death a far less permanent end to their ~romance~ than it ought to be.

Don't you agree, Mr. Harker? ❤

P.S. Gilroy's still absolutely getting his ass handed to him in this take, don't you worry. He's been demoted from crush to chew toy to minion. RIP sir, but you're not off the hook just because Jonathan's distracting her with his dreaminess. Get to work.

[feralthembo]

idk i just. dont have the emotional capacity to handle skinny people who go on a world shattering spiral at the mere thought of being percieved as fat. some of us cant rely on the comfort of "oh its ok youre not fat thats just the dysmorphia". some of us ARE fat and have to do the work you wont or end up another suicide statistic. i am fat, and that means im stronger than you. git gud.

[tittyinfinity]

when you're disabled, being financially abused by your parents never ends

[coquelicoq]

natsume book of friends season 4 opening sequence has got me incredibly fucked up. the lyrics. kid natsume's tiny little legs and teenage natsume watching him run. the lyrics. nyanko-sensei burrowing into his arms. did i mention the lyrics? ending frame on the fujiwara family. including natsume. because he's part of their family. as the lyrics ask him to "please [not] keep suffering alone"? somebody fucking hold me.

[areyouwho-ithinkyouare]

haha people who have normal relationships with their fathers where they didn’t grow up being constantly made to feel dumb/unimportant/annoying…. what’s that like babes hahaha

[citrucee]

i need to learn composition so i can make better illustrations and i need to find new coloring styles so i can make my style have more cohesion and i need to learn graphic design to make cooler compositions and i want to give comics another try and i need to keep working on my site so i can get better at it and i need to make more 3D models and i need to make a game again and i need to write for my setting and worldbuild and i havent made music in so long and and and and and

[alexjcrowley]

Are we really going to pretend Takin Over The Asylum doesn't have a pitch that smokes 80% of Netflix original series

[tortelorrini]

Man I love dndads season 2 I wish it was good

[fruitcakebro]

My younger sibling: Why don't you talk to me more? Why don't you tell me about the things you like? I swear, I have to start every conversation because you never want to talk to me about anything!

Also my younger sibling: Ew, why do you watch this shit? This is so weird, why would anyone like this? Your taste is awful, you should be watching this other thing instead! Here, I'm going to send you 20 Youtube shorts and get mad when you don't want to watch all of them, but if you send me one video, I'm going to call you a hypocrite and tell you that I won't watch your shitty videos because your taste sucks, and if you ever try to share the things you like with me, I'm going to call it boring and awful, to the point where we're not even really watching it, because you can't hear it over me shit-talking something I'm not even really listening to.

[lisbonsteresa]

i know it's like 10 years late but i really think we should be able to charge chris carter with something

[sizablelad]

sometimes i talk myself out of thinking i have adhd, but then i look at the diagnostic criteria again and i have adhd

[oreana-galena]

Stop stalking me!

CW: mentions of sa / stalking

Wendi.. if you're here, stalking my profiles... get the FUCK OUT OF HERE...

You stalked me for 8 yrs after our breakup. I remember you and not in a pleasant way. You ruined me even during our relationship. You were not EVER healthy for me.

I don't care what changes life may have graced you.

I DON'T.. Leave me alone!

It's NINE years later, and you're still finding and stalking around my socials?

I get it, I never changed my online name. I'm easy to find. But that means: it's EASY to avoid me!

You never. EVER. had my consent in mind when we were together. Those dark moments live forever in my brain, and I won't forget it.

8 yrs later, and you STILL show up??

I'm livid. Shaking. The fact you hit like on 2 images on my Instagram shows you're hovering around my stuff. Probably testing the waters.

The waters are still not for you to swim in. Go away. Right now!

Block me like I did you on Instagram! Leave. Me. alone...