#have any control over your life and exist on your own terms even in v small ways while having to constantly be around people whove

[caruliaa]

yk i think like. im trying desperately not to depress people around me w how close to doomerism i can veer but like. at a certain point its like. the effort and exhaustion that goes into maintaining just being alive in this world is not worth what comes from being alive and like. girlies we may have reached it. el oh el.

[leonicscorpio]

Batboy Headcanons because I made this for me but you all can enjoy this too if want. (May contain mild NSFW)

Dick:

Has a weird relationship with unwanted gaze and the attention he receives because of his physique. He genuinely likes the attention but he draws the line when people start getting touchy. Just because he's shirtless working out doesn't mean he gave you consent to touch him.

Has good dieting skills but he's in his mid-late 20's and his metabolism has 0 signs of slowing down. He once ate a whole xl bag of M&M's in front of Steph and Babs and both said they wanted to murder him because he won't gain a pound.

Dick has ADHD and I'm sorry if you don't think otherwise. He has hyperactive type ADHD and while he's gotten better at controlling his symptoms he still stims stretching and flexing his arms and shaking his arms.

While not so much in Gotham, Dick is very politically active and volunteers at voter registration and working with organizations with the mission of police demilitarization in Blüdhaven.

Dick is a very sexually driven individual. However, I don't think it's entirely healthy. His ADHD also comes into play with this but Dick just needs to have a release at least twice a day or he'll feel physically sick.

I don't know if you all have seen male gymnasts. But Dick, like the rest of them, has FREAKSISHLY large biceps. Everyone talks about Dick has the best ass in the bat family and while Jason may be larger and stronger, Dick has the best physique.

Dick's apartment is littered with sticky notes in places such as the fridge/in front of his computer. If it's not written down and in a place where he can't ignore it, it's not going to get done.

I'm sorry I know everyone says his birthday is in March but I have to go to the older Nightwing comics and say his Birthday is December 1st. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me this man doesn't give off Sagittarius energy. You can't. I respect you but you can't look at that and tell me that man isn't a Sagittarius or has super heavy Sag in his birth chart.

Dick's at home doing nothing but chilling? You best believe he's gonna be shirts off, tits out, and rocking some blue flannel PJ's.

Dick is currently the only member of the family asides from Barbara who is regularly attending therapy. And he actively encourages each of his brothers and sisters to go every time.

After his Agent 37 days. He sits down with Jason and talks about having to use a gun and how hard it was. And how having to kill people has affected him. When he had to kill the KGBeast (Agent 37 days he snapped his neck) I headcanon Dick just trauma v*mit*d. Jason hugged him and just consoled him.

It's canon that Dick has anger issues but to me, it's not explored or talked about enough and not a lot of people like to talk about it. Dick is very much the 'if I ignore it it'll go away' type when it comes to his anger and he can brush most insults or harassment off fine enough. But when he breaks, he makes Jason look like a saint. I'm talking slamming you into a wall and screaming in your face angry. He'll be profusely apologetic afterward but still.

Despite popular belief, I don't think he's that bad of a cook. He's just not very experimentative. He can follow a recipe and does look at some guides. But to me, Dick Grayson just is that guy who is like Chicken veggies and rice are a meal that I can cook 4-6 times a week.

Dick has a slight fear of dentists. He doesn't have bad teeth and has good dental health. He just doesn't like the idea of a drill going in his mouth and the few times Bruce has to take him to a dentist he had a panic attack every time.

Everyone lives for the fics where Jason beats the shit out of Tim and everyone is just like lol well Bruce and Dick just forgives him. No. When Dick found out it was Jason who beat Tim to the ground, Dick was literally seething and told Jason "Pick on someone your own size or else I'll make you wish you back in that f'ing coffin."

Dick's favorite foods (some based in Canon*): Milk Chocolate*, Cereal*, Asparagus, Bananas, Banana flavored candy, Hawaiian Pizza* (suffer its canon) Rum, thanksgiving Turkey.

Jason:

He may be the self-diagnosed black sheep (rightfully so) of the family, but Jason does genuinely love spending time with his siblings. Whether it be sharing memes with them on social media or just randomly showing up where they are and abducting them to go get ice cream/coffee/snacks.

He'd probably attempt to harm you if you told him this to his face. But he is the closest acting to Bruce out of all of the family. In terms of mannerisms and inherent warmth and kindness behind a dark façade.

Has two moods: either exceptionally, almost neat-freak levels of clean, or his life is completely falling apart and Jason can't tell you for sure what color his floors are because there's so much stuff scattered about.

Despite their initial hatred of each other, Jason truly feels closest to Tim and Tim is the only person asides from maybe Barbra who he can just talk to without feeling any judgment.

Jason only smokes when he's extremely nervous about an operation or a hit. For those who don't know criminal justice cigarettes are the fastest way to get genetic material on someone. That being said he does still like to smoke occasionally.

Me, plus a lot of people give him this sort of 'Lazarus Rage' as I like to call it. When he's in the heat of a mission or if he's getting upset/angry his vision will get blurred with green, and it feeds on his anger and just gets perpetually harder to contain until he releases it. Jason has gotten much better at controlling it. But as he will tell Tim or Babs, he's "seeing green" which means they need to be careful because Jason could kill.

Everyone says Dick is the mother hen. I see you, I accept you, but let me raise you. Jason came to realize that he died because of his rash decision to go after The Joker alone. If Jason finds any of his siblings out acting alone, or even at the very least without Oracle. Jason WILL forcefully interject himself and ask them what the fuck they think their doing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Trying to get close to Jason is hard. He will degrade you can attempt to try to get you to hate him before he lets you in (that cheeky Tsun of him)

He genuinely cares for and supports all of his siblings but has been rough on them needlessly. But if Bruce is being the distant or absent parent he is, you better believe if any of the siblings drops him a text or a call, Jason will be there in a heartbeat.

He's the most physically powerful of the whole Bat Family. You don't understand because of his time in the League, his time with the All-Caste, and having abused Venom for a time, he can snap an arm bone like it's a carrot with little effort.

Everyone in the family likes dogs and goes out of their way to gush over a dog, but Jason takes it to a whole new level. And even when he's masked up dogs just gravitate to Jason.

Can and has grown a beard in a matter of a few days. He usually likes to be clean shaven but some days he likes to wear a beard just to throw everyone off.

One time him, Steph, Tim, and Duke all went to a restaurant (Red Robin lol) and the waitress got his order wrong and his burger had raw tomatoes on it, Jason took the tomatoes off and ate it while looking absolutely miserable. Tim: Jay why did you eat that you didn't have to you know you could have asked the server to fix your burger. Jason, almost in tears: "She works really hard and she tried and I'm a scary dude I don't want to make her upset.." Duke: "... Jason you literally shot at a cop for looking at you funny the other day. But you're afraid of upsetting a waitress?!? I mean ACAB but dude.. "

Jason's happiest big brother moment™ was taking Tim and Damian to the shooting range and watching them both get their first bullseye.

You can't tell me Jason Todd was into the Emo/Screamo/Warped-Tour Scene. His favorite bands/Albums in no particular order, That's the Spirit (Literally the whole album is Jason Themed and I'm gonna die on this hill) & Sempiternal by Bring me the Horizon, Digital Renegade & Everyone's Safe in the Treehouse by I See Stars, The Resistance: Rise of the Runaways by Crown the Empire,

Jason Todd's favorite foods: (Also some based in Canon*) Burgers, Chili Dogs*, Lager-style beers, Freshly baked bread*, Neopolitan ice cream, grilled corn, and Chinese Chicken noodle soup with Duck.

Tim:

This boy *slaps car roof* gives off so much asexual energy. I know New 52 exists but I just feel like Tim is the person who really, REALLY has to trust you and like you before he's sexually active with you.

HYPERFIXATES. You also can't tell me Tim isn't on the spectrum/or has ADHD.

Is the only member of the family who regularly checks up on Jason and talks to him every day via text message. The two are memelords together and love to play pranks on the other members.

While Dick may give the most frequent hugs and Jason gives the tightest, most secure hugs, Tim's hugs are always the warmest and make you just feel good.

Tim's birthday is July 19th. Meaning he's a Cancer. Let that sink in.. no, really let that information just soak. (Note I have nothing against Cancer women, cancer men however....)

All of the bat boys really struggle with talking about their feelings. Dick will manipulate you into changing the subject via twisting it to be about you, Jason will just cut you off or will ignore you, Damian will deflect everything and harass you until you stop, Tim however, Tim is very emotional and while he's very calculated about who he's emotional with, he's not afraid to break down and cry if he trusts you.

Everyone who says he's the level headed Robin haha how's it feel to be WRONG. Tim is at best the least functional college student and at worst a lemming. 'No Tim, coffee isn't a meal I'm going to make you some food or I'm going to stick you in a room with Damian for an hour.' Richard (Dick) John Grayson.

People overblow how addicted to caffeine Tim is. But it's true. Just overblown. You can talk to him before he's had his caffeine just don't expect him to be anything but curt and blunt.

Everyone says Jason would be the worst at texting but it's Tim. He's the master of leaving you on read. While Jason may do it on purpose, Tim is just really bad at texting people and while he always will read your messages he forgets to respond unless it's really funny or really pressing.

Everyone sees Tim as this bean pole super skinny boy Robin. Tim may not be stacked like Dick or a freaking tank like Jason, but Tim is NOT super skinny. He's just as muscular and likes to work out as anyone, but he just is super lean, so he looks a lot bigger and his muscles are more defined because of how thin his skin is. He has those almost disgusting spider veins on his arm. Kind of gross to look at, but he's the dream of any nurse. This means Tim is also the king of accidentally sending/posting thirst traps.

He really is the glue of the Bat Family. Everyone kidnaps Tim for 'Tim Time'.

Dick likes to spar with and in general just hang out with Tim. Tim tried to teach Dick how to skateboard and you'd think the boy who mastered the trapeze would know how to skateboard but you'd be wrong.

Babs and Tim always hang out and talk about computer stuff and Babs knows she can vent to Tim about anything and he won't say a word.

Tim and Steph were a thing for a while and even though they're just friends now, they still are very close and the two have a very deep bond, liking to shop with each other and watch movies,

Cass just loves to be around Tim because of how calming he is but also she knows she can spar with him AND Cass can also skateboard with Tim too.

Even though him and Damian are always fighting, the two still end up being together and have this unspoken bond. They work great together on a team but other than that they still hate each other.

And while everyone still is hesitant around Jason, and despite the fact that Jason literally beat Tim to within an inch of his life, AND would still trigger Tim and taunt him about it. The two have this odd closeness that rivals even him and Steph. Tim will always be the first to bat for Jason. Jason was Tim's Robin. And despite the fact Jason literally beat it into Tim's head to "never meet your heroes." Tim will always be there for Jason should he ask. The two are just close. And it's hard to describe. Bruce has caught Tim and Jason just platonically sleeping next to each other or just doing their own things shoulder to shoulder silently, just enjoying each other's company.

Tim and Duke also have a really positive relationship with one another and the two can stay up all night just talking about anything. Their minds just mesh well together. The two also love to team up and prank the other members of the Batman Family.

Tim's favorite ASMR/Stim? Watching those Tik Toks of people cleaning computers or cleaning phones. The sound of an air duster is like music to his ears and if any of the Bats need their technology cleaned it secretly makes Tim so happy to help them.

Wear his hair up or wear his hair down? It depends! While Tim likes his long hair he also has gotten plenty of compliments for his short hair and likes to style it to suit any occasion.

My one pet-peeve with Tim is that he probably is that person who lets his privilege show from time to time. While he was essentially raised to just sit down, shut up, and be a perfect trophy son to the Drake's. The Drake's were in the same tax bracket as Bruce and Tim definitely was a rich kid. He never means to come across as spoiled, but sometimes Jason will give him harsh looks if Tim just throws away food he doesn't like or says things like Chipotle is 'poor people food'

Tim Drake's favorite foods (you know by now*) Donuts*, Shallot and Artichoke Pizza with Canadian Bacon* (odd choice but it could work) Artichokes in general are his favorite vegetable, Strawberries, and Beef Pho.

Damian:

I headcanon that he has the worst teeth of all of the Bat Boys and he actually has to use lingual braces. (Hence why you can't see his braces)

Canonically is a very good artist and while him and Tim don't get along, Tim introduced Damian to digital art and gave him a photoshop pack and a nice tablet for his birthday one year and Damian loved it so much.

Damian is a capricorn and I will die on this hill. A January capricorn too.

Now you want a good chef? You've got Damian. Having converted to veganism Damian has had to get creative whenever he goes out to eat so he tends to like to eat more home cooked foods. Damian loves all matters of mushrooms, eggplant, and bell peppers.

Damian really struggles the most with his wanting to just be a normal kid. Despite the fact he will dismiss you for it, anytime he gets to spend at Gotham Academy with Jon and the rest of the kids he's naturally the happiest.

Damian LOVES to give gifts. He loves the look on people's faces when they are shocked when they actually get something from Damian.

Despite the fact that he's been traumatized from both his times with Ra's and Talia as well as with Bruce. He just wants Bruce and Talia to be together because he loves them both equally.

While he's the least flexible and least gymnastic of the Robins do let your guard down around him. He is the fastest runner and the guy is rivaled only by Jason in terms of lethality.

So someone (Jason Todd & Duke Thomas) introduced Damian to trap music and ever since anytime his phone gets stolen people will be shocked to find he's listening to some combination of Lil' Yachty, X, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz, and Kodak.

If any random person tries to hug Damian he'll immediately push them away, he'll bitch and moan about just about anyone hugging him other than Bruce & Dick.

Damian loves to go to the beach/the ocean. He just thinks it's so vast and he loves the brineness of the air. Also being half white, quarter middle-eastern and quarter Chinese (Yes everyone forgets Talia is half Chinese) Damian gets DARK. And although he's just okay as a swimmer he still likes bogeyboarding and eventually wants to learn how to surf.

I'm genuinely afraid once Puberty is done with this kid and everyone in the family is. He has Bruce Wayne AND Talia Al-Ghouls genes and those are two SEXY human beings. Damian's gonna grow a beard one day and people aren't going to know how to act.

Damian secretly plays Fortnight and not even Jon knows. He doesn't want to get shamed. He'd rather lose a match and ruin his streaks than deal with the shame of anyone in that family finding out he plays Fortnight.

Damian Wayne's favorite foods (canon*) Cereal*, Avocados, Grilled Tempeh, his mom's Tabbouleh, Mushroom Tacos, and Vegan Sushi rolls, and grape juice.

Duke Thomas

Duke is like, freakishly good with a piano, and he picked it up naturally!

Also everyone says Tim brews the best pot of coffee in the Bat Family, cue to everyone's surprise when Tim was sick one day and couldn't make a pot. Only to find the coffee was freaking amazing. Duke didn't take any credit at first until Alfred let it slip that Duke was the one who brewed the pot.

Duke being the only Meta of the family originally thought he was the double-token because he was a Meta and a black boy. Needless to say his fears were seriously unfounded the moment he got to know everyone.

Although he somewhat fears Jason and his temper initially, he and Jason have one of the closest relationships in the family. If Tim isn't around to bat for Jason, Duke will happily take his spot. The two work on each other's bikes and grew to share the same taste in music.

Duke uses his Photokenetic powers as a force for good and for shenanigans. Jason wants to play a prank on Dick and Damian while Dick is reading Damian a story? Duke will hide Jason in the shadows and will cover up his shadow. Alfred dropped something in the dark? You better believe Duke will find it in 3 seconds or less.

Duke makes it a point to visit his parents every weekend to talk to them. Although they are making some progress in their recoveries, it's still slow going. Eventually, he starts bringing members of the family to see his parents. It started with Cass, then Jason, and the rest followed suit.

Duke loves playing video games with Damian and even helps Damian beat some tougher levels when Damian is about to rage and destroy the console.

Duke is into Magic the Gathering and you cannot tell me otherwise. Duke also is the DM for the Bat Kids annual D&D games. I can and will make a D&D Batfam Headcanons if asked.

Loves Pho just as much as Cass and Tim and they all call it a date night every now and then where they can go to a hole in the wall pho place. It's really a secret between the three of them.

DUKE THOMAS IS THE BEST SWIMMER OF THE BAT BOYS AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL. HE JUST THRIVES IN THE WATER.

Finding out his birth father is a supervillain was really tough for him. He went into a shell for a little bit afterwards. Cass and Steph were there to help talk him out of his funk.

Duke Thomas's favorite foods (lol what canon DC hasn't acknowleged our boy in a while..) Chicken Pho, Thai Iced Tea, Papaya, Crab Cakes, Italian Hoagies, his mom's Lemon Poundcake, mint chocolate chip ice cream.

I hope y'all enjoyed! Up next (eventually) will be the Bat Girls!

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

i saw your post about Charles and what his personality past and part in the story line so i was wondering if u could do the same for vlad? :)

Ah, well, I can at least let you know what I’ve seen so far? I haven’t delved too far into Vlad, and some of his general impressions can be confusing, so I’ll do my best to make it sensible and unbiased! Here you go lovely <33333

Fair warning, there will be mentions of a lot of JPN app content since Vlad and his boys aren’t around much in the ENG app yet.

My general sense of Vlad is basically discount vampire Sasuke Uchiha.

What I mean by this is to say–according to what I’ve read so far–his clan/family were murdered by vampire hunters in cold blood when he was just a young boy. Presumably as a result of that traumatic event, he harbors a sizable enmity towards humanity and kind of lashes out on them in weirdly specific moments of violence. Another aspect of his motivation is something that’s mentioned within Comte’s route; which is that Vlad went through the timespace door on his own one day and allegedly saw a devastated future, where nothing remains of life on earth more or less.

I guess the reason I find him to be so perplexing is that he speaks about his actions in terms of efficiency, while most of the things he does just feel like unhappy outbursts (v often a product of unresolved trauma symptoms, I’d wager.) I also say this because he appears to have no larger pattern to his fury beyond the original event of his loss. Most of the human beings he attacks aren’t much of a threat to him and hurting them really doesn’t bring him any dividends beyond revenge.

For instance, he insists his disdain for humanity and insistence on controlling them is for the sake of ensuring they do not destroy the future–the horrifying wasteland he witnessed when he traveled through the timespace door. However, I’m not really sure how his current movements really speak to that goal? I mean sure, maybe he’s relying on Faust to create an immortal human so that humans will be forced to care because it will be their future too, but he doesn’t allow Faust to draw his pureblood blood for experimenting. (One can most certainly argue this was more about a lack of trust, and perhaps for plenty reason: Faust is vindictive enough to try to turn the tables and exert control over Vlad, or act on his own whims with his findings.) But if that’s the solution he’s waiting on, turning the rivals of the men in the mansion doesn’t really bring him any closer to that vision either? I mean, what good does it do to bring back Gilles de Rais–a prominent French serial killer? How would unleashing him on the populace help humanity “realize the error of it’s short-sighted and wasteful ways” and move to a brighter future?

Can’t help it, I ask these questions as I read.

In Comte’s main story, Comte hammers home that Vlad is not somebody to be taken lightly. One day when MC goes out to buy flowers, Vlad poses as a human florist to sell them to her–which is how Comte finds out he’s in France, and that he’s made contact with MC. When prompted, Comte describes him in a very particular way; and I think people really overlook this when they talk about their relationship. He says that Vlad is frighteningly pure in terms of the way he thinks and acts. The way I understood his description (given what I’ve seen of Vlad) is that Comte really does mean it point blank: Vlad is very simple in terms of why and how he does things. The issue with this is that nuance and context are lost on Vlad as well–and that’s where the problems start to flood in. Vlad is angry at humanity for what they’ve done to him. Baseline? That’s fair, they killed his damn family. However, Vlad thinks that by extension he has the right to decimate the general public and attack people completely uninvolved in his hurt.

And that isn’t right either–it’s ignoring so many factors here. He’s ignoring how much vampires use and toy with humans as pawns, it’s ignoring the massive power imbalance between him and his victims (this really isn’t a case of self-defense most of the time, nobody but Comte/Leo is a sizable threat to him), and he’s ignoring whether or not a person even did anything to deserve his retributive violence. While murder is never okay, it is perhaps more understandable when we see Jeanne’s frenzied and violent belligerence in response to a man who murders a boy’s mother for the sake of his own amusement/convenience. Vlad literally sees almost every single one of the rivals he created begin to heal/improve and murders them in cold blood because they are no longer of any use to him. That’s uh……..that’s a little messed, not gonna lie to you chief.

While part of me understands the efficiency here–he doesn’t want to leave any traces of his involvement, he doesn’t want any loose ends–it’s also just kind of foolish and cruel ultimately. From my understanding of the narrative, all the people he turned had some visible sign that indicated their origin to Comte. So even if he claims it was for the sake of concealment, it was more likely about his personal convenience. Which…..also yikes.

[Comte clearly does not trust Vlad to be reasonable, and I think there’s plenty of good reason enumerated above, but I actually don’t sense quite so much hatred? I think he’s just given up on the idea of Vlad growing up, even if he doesn’t like giving up on people. And considering Vlad’s behavior, I think it’s overkill to say that Comte just abandons him because he doesn’t care lmao. Even when Comte expresses real anger at the end of his own route, it was more because Vlad was fine with endangering MC’s life just to get back at him. I think Comte’s unhappiness with Vlad has more to do with Vlad’s treatment of human life as meaningless and worthless. It’s fascinating but also kind of sad? Vlad’s traumatic experience results in behavior that is a direct exacerbation of Comte’s trauma, and as such--no matter their potentially fond history--they can’t stomach each other.]

In Comte’s route, Vlad also has Shakespeare abduct MC and take her to the cathedral. Later on in the castle, we see an immediate display of Vlad’s shocking powers: he has the ability to manipulate people’s desires/thoughts. I’m not exactly sure how this works, but he is able to give MC visions of the mansion and Comte coming on to her–which shocks her into realizing it’s all just a dream. It’s not reality; it’s all manufactured by Vlad.

After that...weird introductory note...Vlad gives MC the rundown on his life together with Comte, which as always is subject to a question of bias. My assumption is that he did not lie, only because he was trying to convince MC that he was “right.” Furthermore, he does not omit the most damning evidence of his erroneous judgement, which suggests a continued inability for him to see where he went wrong.

We get a series of three flashbacks. The first is them as young kids. I don’t know if Vlad had already experienced the horrors of his family being destroyed, but this particular flashback focuses on Comte. His parents, in an effort to teach him that vampires and humans have no ability to co-exist, send away all of his teachers/mentors/nannies/the servants--pretty much everyone and anyone he was closely bonded to. Think about it this way: we can see that Comte is very sociable and affectionate by nature. He was living in a house full of people, all of whom cared about him and looked after him in their own way. Now the house is entirely empty. Naturally Comte is very very upset, and Vlad appears to try to cheer him up with little success. 

[When I look back on this scene I don’t think I initially registered the sheer dissonance of Vlad’s reaction, versus Comte’s catatonic misery. There was a very solemn feeling to that memory, and the correct choice in terms of extending comfort is to hold his hand believe it or not. There is a sense that he feels very alone. When young boy Vlad enters one can argue that it was the proper thing to do; he was trying to cheer up his playmate and friend. But at the same time, I think I need to double check. Because I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong. What if Vlad was happy to see someone as alone as him, and that joy is accordingly dissonant for that reason? He can’t see what Comte needs or how he’s hurting because he’s so glad he isn’t alone anymore in a way.]

The second flashback is the war nurse scene that I have spoken at length about. The important thing to focus on here is Vlad’s surprise that Comte would opt out of turning her out of respect for her wishes. The way Vlad frames the situation is starkly different from Comte’s. Comte sees himself as an outsider, somebody who invaded her life as a result of the timespace door and therefore has no right to suddenly change the course of her fate. He had no idea if she even wanted to live (considering the horrors she’d have to cope with and remember) or leave that time period at all, for that matter (considering the only thing keeping her going was helping the wounded/victims). Comte really was listening to everything she had to say, and he was taking her concerns and motivations seriously. 

Vlad simply says: if you want her, take her. It’s as simple as that for him. And in one way that’s not entirely wrong--assuming Comte would have every intention of looking after her and actually cares a lot about her. But what’s being ignored here is her agency and the fact that they really don’t know each other that well? Something like that could begin and be rocky, if it doesn’t end in complete disaster. Worse, I get the feeling Vlad is perfectly fine with the notion of turning her and if things don’t work out, just kill her or get rid of her. Again, the simplistic thinking comes into play here: it ultimately comes down to Vlad being self-centered. He’s thinking only in terms of satisfying his needs, he doesn’t seem to have any concept of a larger pair or group feeling. There’s an inability to bend/be flexible for the sake of maintaining a greater harmonious feeling. 

[For the record, I don’t think this makes him irredeemable? Only that it makes it very hard to live with him or love him, probably. There’s an inability to live at a joint pace? It’s always answering to what he wants without room for anything else most of the time, which to me is not living and it’s not love ;;;;]

Following their escape back to their own time, Vlad explains how he wants to use the door to turn geniuses and control humanity. He eventually wants to create a surveillance state, which would mean everyone is forced to move with his explicit approval, more or less. (He almost reminds me of Louis XIV, can’t tell if that’s what they were going for.) I have my doubts that his abilities could extend that far, but human history shows us that we are plenty susceptible to fascist and totalitarian rhetoric. In a shocking display of anger, Comte draws the line at controlling humanity and forcing them into a regime in which, and this is Vlad’s description not mine, “we (purebloods) would be like kings.” There’s definitely a concept of evolutionary superiority at play here, which echoes what I mentioned earlier; vampires seem to have this awareness that they’re apex predators in a sense, and enjoy the power that comes with that. Unfortunately, that probably makes for a fairly toxic/uncomfortable larger species culture, which is exactly what Comte and Leo hate lmao.

Vlad does not seem to find any issue with this sort of outlook, and asks MC to decide which of them--Vlad or Comte--is right. Who is more realistic, who best understands the future? As expected the MC replies that it's Comte, and Vlad goes from beseeching to big mad at record speed. He's p much that gif of the teddy bear that smacks its head down on the tables and then has the angry eyebrows.

This is where Comte intervenes, firing a warning shot that grazes Vlad's cheek and demanding he let MC go. In response, Vlad shoves MC into the turbulent timespace door--p much guaranteeing MC's death. (Essentially timespace is a void of sorts, a human being could never survive in that environment for long. Vlad fully knew this, and yeeted her anyway.)

So uh, yeah. Disagreement? Death. Moving on? Death. Nuanced approach to reality? Death. Beginning to think he doesn't really have a lot of patience or open-mindedness or any other kind of problem-solving approach. 

He raises flowers and gardens like a fiend, and he openly plucks any single flower with a blemished leaf. Even if a single petal is slightly damaged, it will be removed and destroyed. So one could argue his extremism reflects a kind of perfectionism as well. No room for errors or troublesome dissent. No ugliness of any kind. I mean in all of his interactions with Faust and Charles this is the overt undertone. Don't ask more of me than I'm willing to give. Behave like good children, mommy's busy. Is that insubordination? boss music begins

One thing I actually don't understand very well is his decision making in Dazai's route. Dazai finds out about what Vlad's doing in a nanosecond when he senses MC is in danger, and yet Vlad makes absolutely no move to eliminate Dazai? He just watches from the shadows. Even when Dazai grills Charles about his loyalty to Vlad, no retribution.

My best guess for this specific situation is that Vlad does derive some level of satisfaction thwarting the future of human beings/former humans. Dazai--being somebody with no great desire to live, no rivals to speak of as far as we can tell, and no larger aspirations--is a life that is easily extinguished. There's no satisfaction in it. When Vlad's clan was murdered and he saw the future decimated, it could be that he felt humans had invaded and eradicated every potentiality that was important to him. Where he might have lived happily with his family, that future was ripped from his grasp. Where he might enjoy his flowers and the creation of an immortal for the rest of conceivable time, that too was ripped from his grasp with a desolate future. 

So much about who Vlad is is about control, so it's very possible his lashing out is an extension of that. Dazai does not awaken any of the disdain he feels, and he does not succeed in overthrowing Vlad's control over Charles, so Vlad simply lurks in silence.

And last but not least, I've seen the preview to Vlad's newest birthday event story. The contents are incredibly revealing, in that MC wishing him a happy birthday and offering him a gift has him saying that it was "the best birthday ever." Granted idk if that’s sweet or just...beyond sad, but here we are. It’s only compounding my curiosity about the wound on his chest--I really do wonder if he was attacked and locked away by vampire hunters or hostile human beings or something. I say that only because that line speaks to a lot of isolation, and given how little he seems to care about turning people/subjecting them to his whims it feels odd. Why the isolation or lack of people who care about him? Is it a perceived lack where his actions alienated all the people who wanted to be close to him, or is it a more involuntary lack?

When she says let’s celebrate again next year, he seems a pleasantly shocked by the notion, and remarks “Ah yes, it’s a promise c:”. The preview was also mega horny: “You make me feel so loved, I don’t think I can be gentle with you tonight. If you enjoy it so much, then I won’t stop. I want to see you completely lost for me. I’ll teach your body what it means to be loved by a pureblood.” Aaaaaand pretty sure the CG was alluding to him licking the good stuff from her basement, though not entirely sure given it was only the preview. 

The brief POV they give us is also very revealing:

“You always keep your promises, and I think I underestimate all the time how much you saved me. You are good, only you are good in this world.”

“Will we continue to make promises to each other in the future? Well in that case--you will always, always be mine, my vampire.”

Tbh he’s...v sweet? In his own way? Honestly he feels like a crabapple that is just so sick of the world and wants softe wife to take comfort in. While granted that’s not really my thing, I know a fanbase appeal exists for these types--so if that’s your thing, have at it!

So now that we have reached the end of my ridiculously long analysis (when am I ever brief, I’m so sorry. If you made it all the way here you deserve a cookie at the very least, if not the right to chase me with a bat) perhaps it’s more clear why I said discount vampire Sasuke Uchiha? “My clan is gone, every other second I’m going to be in retraumatization insanity, when I’m not I’ll be seeking power/hobbies, planning the demise of people who wanted the best for me, building a team to my advantage and unquestioned control, and eventually settling for a lifelong love who sees the best in me despite my more difficult moments and perceived hollowing loneliness. Not the most ideal comparison, but I will say if Vlad was not already named the historical figure, would have pointed and yelled Uchiha.

That’s all from me folks, hopefully this was a fun way to get introduced to him? And again, hope I didn’t alienate--I fully respect what people do and don’t enjoy o7

[dallonm-archive]

TABBY | SHORT STORY UPDATES #4

In Tabby, a reclusive man who’d rather exist as a phantom than a human notices the neighbours aren’t feeding their cat, and is sucked into a world that breaks the stillness of his own.

Genre: literary fiction, “soft” noir (??)

POV: 1st person present, very observational and detached for most of the narrative

Setting: late 1940s/early 1950s, unnamed US city but implied to be Los Angeles 

Atmosphere: a summer that’s sickly, orange juice, the smell of paint, shaky hands, peach skies, sunflowers, blood splatter, a cats purr, the gut feeling that something is very, very wrong

Literal Logline: this cat is my friend and he doesn’t judge me over silly little things like the murder i just committed (also i think he might be god??)

Hi I wrote a story about a cat and got way too into it and accidentally made it about murder and now it might be my favourite thing I’ve written! Lets talk about it! cw for murder and blood imagery!

general taglist ; @kowlazovdi​ @avi-burton-writing​ @ryns-ramblings​ @melpomeny​ @kitblogsthings​ @ezrathings​ @aetherwrites​ @bookphobe​ @haldimilks​ @alicewestwater​ @bookpacking​ @shaelinwrites​ @writingamongthecoloredroses​ @harehearts​ @zemnian​ @onlyganymede​ @theelectricfactory​ @write-like-babs​ @oceancold​ @notphilosopherstudentblog​ @veiliza​ @sidhewrites​ @wolf-oak​ @feverdreamwritings​ @oasis-of-you​

This entire story sparked from this photo, which I couldn’t find a specific source for, but is cute and a Mood nonetheless! 

My thought process was essentially “man sits on bench with cat...........and also.......murder?” I don’t know why my brain is like this!!! 

I imagine this story being set in the late 40s/early 50s, but haven’t pinpointed exactly, in a suburb of Los Angeles (but this also isn’t clear in the story as of now). This used to be my go to setting when I was really into noir, and it was fun to return to that in a non-noir piece! This started out as purely literary, but now I do see some noir elements here. They’re just very subtle - nor was I intentionally trying to capture any - and the story misses some of the fundamental conventions. To me it’s almost like...soft noir? Noir lite??  I feel like it’s inherently noir and inherently not noir at the same time but I love the vibes of it a lot. There’s this “glow” to the story that I can’t exactly put into words, like a very subtle golden hour that is very tranquil and strangely undisturbed by the general chaos going on in the actual story

I took this setting, the vibes, and the idea of a character with an innate connection to this cat, plus a murder chucked somewhere in the middle and ran with it.

I wrote this over the course of a couple days, and it came very naturally! The prose is a little more sparse than my usual writing which made the process much quicker, and I’m really into this style at the moment. A lot of it is also internal thought, which y’all know is right up my alley. I really, really love the voice in this. It starts very unremarkable, but there is an unsettling undercurrent that grows and grows and it’s been very fun to blend the mundane and the creepy. This story really reignited my drive for short fiction because the trend lately has been coming up with an idea I love that just doesn’t translate on paper, but this one despite needing a good deal of work was very smooth!

I’d say this is my first successful attempt at a nameless/faceless character and it’s one of the most interesting experiences of character development I’ve had in a long time?? The only other time I’ve done this is in my story Rinse Cycle, but the narrator never really felt much like a character (which is very unusual for me), whereas the narrator in Tabby feels as fleshed out and nuanced as any of my characters with names or faces. I rarely focus on appearances for short story characters anyway, but I’ve never struggled with finding a name for a character and this narrator just Does Not want to be named. But I think that really fits him! He likes to be invisible and drift through life unnoticed, where he is merely an observer rather than a participant; so when he does get chucked into the middle of a very messy, very chaotic situation he essentially shuts down. I really like the tonal shift this creates where we go from a very detached narrative to very in the moment, very vivid and intense, like we go from 0 to 100 real quick. I don’t want to share a lot of plot details (which makes writing this a little frustrating sigh), but it ends with him committing a murder that, whilst intentional in the moment, is entirely impulsive and practically out of his control. He is not a natural killer and goes from barely being an emotional participant in his life to fully immersed in the moment and absolutely terrified by that. I’m really looking forward to digging deeper into his psychological state as I work on this draft because Boy We Don’t Have Time To Unpack All This. A quick summary of him would be though

people watcher, picks up more than he realises

living in a house he inherited from his dead father 

made eye contact with a stranger and it was physically painful

quietly unhinged

doesn’t feel like he’s a person 

oh no, now i have to face the consequences of my actions!

I’m trying to limit the amount of excerpts I post when it comes to short stories [because I am always basing the value of my content on prose I share which is! not healthy!], so the only writing I’m going to share is this little description that’s not very plot relevant, but is a good demonstration of this narrator’s funky little voice:

Every morning, at seven sharp, I routinely sit on the swinging bench behind my house to eat over easy eggs and burnt sausages. I still don’t understand how to cook meat. Behind me, cars murmur and sputter into the city, housewives chatter from their separate square gardens and I do not exist in the same reality as them. I am boxed in by off-white picket fence. The fence dividing my neighbours and I – a saffron coloured house with sunflowers bordering the perimeter – is painted pinkish red like an infected tongue. Every morning, I routinely think, that I do not know what’s stranger: how the red jolts the sun house’s otherwise harmonious existence, or the way the job was never finished. It’s not as if the painter died, because if the painter died there would be a corpse; perhaps blood spatter would darken against red wood, perhaps paint would pool out of the dropped can and mimic the presence of an exit wound. 

Y’all might be wondering, where does the cat fit in all of this? And the answer is it’s complicated! In terms of form, we bounce between observations/interactions of the cats behaviour and the “main plot” of the story - which is to do with the rather unhinged new neighbours disrupting our neighbours unremarkable life. Thematically, the cat definitely symbolises a lot of things and opens up a lot of conversations that I still haven’t polished because well, we’re on draft one and I was focused on some funky Cat Descriptions. Some fun ideas include the distinction between human and animal, how capitalism is impeding on our chances to live a fulfilled life, and the idea that all humans do is overcomplicate everything. It’s presence also acts as a grounding technique for the narrator, since he so easily detaches himself from the rest of the world. The writing started with a scene of the act killing a mouse and how clean and simple it all is that I’m lowkey obsessed with, and is definitely some non-subtle foreshadowing for what comes later. 

I like to joke that the cat is God because sometimes the narrator says some weird shit like, how the Earth stops orbiting the sun when the cat goes to sleep and how the cat doesn’t need to worry about predators because it hasn’t invented any. So the cat is not officially “God” but like,...,,It Might Be

Quickly adding this to the end but! Your girl finally has a (working title) for her collection! I’m not ready to share it yet because I’m still not 100% on it, I feel it matches the stories thematically but not always tonally, however it captures the core idea that I’ve been following so it’s good enough for me. This was a really important step because as much as I tried I could Not Visualise a collection at all without a title, which is v annoying because titling a collection is the worst!!! I was fine just writing short stories and letting them exist but I really wanted to build them as a cohesive collection as I went, and now I really like where it’s going - it’s definitely got a long way to go but I feel like I’ve finally managed to take control of it and steer it into a direction that reflects what I enjoy to write. I spent a lot of months clinging onto the collection I started in late 2018 before The Great Writing Hiatus Of 2019, even though it really didn’t resonate with me anymore, so I’m very happy to feel like I’m now on the right path and I feel the collection really shows my growth as a writer this year! This is definitely not set in stone, but I have a lot of fun imagining the potential order of the stories and right now it looks like:

[Some of these are stories unfinished, and some of them are finished and I just haven’t talked about them because I am the Worst at remembering to write short story updates, but tbh I’m thinking of just talking about them all briefly in a big post about the collection when I write a proper intro for it in the future]

We love to see it! I’m hoping to put a lot of time into this collection in 2021 and get some submissions rolling too (I had the goal of submitting at least one story by the end of this year and I! Don’t know if that’ll happen but January definitely). I’m likely going to be taking most of the year out of uni due to the whole global and mental turmoil rn [also I’d have to apply for writing masters atm and that is NOT happening lmfao], so I’m v v excited to have some extra writing time and see where this all goes!

[eclecticvalor]

7 Things I experience as a DID System. Mental Health Awareness Month.

In light of May being America’s mental health awareness month, I wanted to talk about something that has consumed my entire life for the past year and a half: Treatment and healing from a disorder that is stigmatised into the ground by poor representation and misunderstandings both socially and in the medical field. Those who are close to me know first hand how my symptoms and experiences have shaped the way I interact with the world since starting treatment, but aside from my closest friends and family, and the people I live with, I don’t normally talk about the fact that I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, and what that means to me. 

Hi. My name is Atlas, some people call me Cadyn, and I am the primary host of 26 fragmented parts of my consciousness. I am not dangerous, none of my parts or alters are dangerous, and no, it is not like “Split”. 

Dissociative Identity Disorder is a trauma based dissociative disorder listed in both the DSM IV and V,  and is recognized as an uncommon disorder characterized by two or more distinct personality states existing within the same consciousness. These personality states come to be when natural childhood development is disrupted by severe, continued, or repetitive, trauma, the child has a natural inclination towards heavy dissociation, and a lack of adult or parental support to develop the means to cope with the things happening to them.

Unfortunately popular mental health media has seen an uptake in people viewing DID as a quirky “trait”, the ability to have functional imaginary friends living in your head... but in reality DID is a lot darker, a lot scarier, and isn’t something I’d wish upon my worst enemy. Because of this media spike I wanted to share 7 things that living with Dissociative identity disorder means to me

1. Amnesia

Living with DID means that I miss out on a lot of my life. A primary symptom of DID is amnesia. I have no solid memories before the age of 13, and the memories I do have are often skewed, incorrect, or completely false as my brain fought for a way to fill in gaps and cope with the loss of memory. I forget a lot, and not just things like forgetting where I left my wallet and keys, or forgetting the day - those do happen, but I also mean forgetting big things, important life experiences and things I wish with all my being that I could remember like my highschool graduation and my wedding reception. 

I often forget important day to day things that make it difficult to maintain life as an adult, like doctors appointments, work schedules, meetings, and important daily tasks. I’ll forget that I’ve eaten at all that day and risk going days without eating, or overeating due to having no recollection of the last time I’d eaten. I forget birthdays (especially my own), anniversaries, and important holidays. 

To an outsider, who has no idea what’s happening inside my head, this can come across as though I’m thoughtless or unreliable. That I am cold for forgetting an important date, or simply that I just don’t care when this very much is not the case. 

2. Alienation

Oftentimes DID comes with a sense of alienation from people who you’re supposed to know. For me a really clear example of this is when I previously mentioned my childhood memories being skewed - I have a clear memory of a conversation I was having with some blood relatives a few years back in which I mentioned that one family member I had happy childhood memories of, and remembered playing together as kids, but with another family member they were practically a stranger to me. I had, and still have, no memories of ever spending time with them growing up, no memories of having any kind of relationship with them at all. My understanding of our relationship was that it was “forced” because we were family and our parents expected us to exist in the same space as we grew up, but that we never talked. But I was informed by a separate member of the family that I was very wrong, and this “stranger” was actually someone I had been close to growing up. This is a common experience with DID patients, and also a very frustrating one. It creates feelings of “You know me but I don’t know you”, and it’s extremely difficult to trust your own judgement of the people you know, because you often can’t tell if your judgement is skewed by your memories or lack thereof. 

3. PTSD and Flashbacks

A diagnosis of C-PTSD (Or complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is required for a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder. This means that while the individual symptoms of DID can be frustrating, scary and sometimes depressing, the most difficult aspect of DID, and the most important to focus on in treatment is the PTSD symptoms. 

PTSD symptoms in DID can be extremely powerful due to the additional dissociative aspect. This can mean that for a lot of DID patients, flashbacks can produce full blown body sensations, hallucinations and terrifying delusions. This is One thing that I find incredibly difficult to talk about, but I also believe is extremely important to understand. It can be embarrassing, shameful and while I only speak for myself in saying this, can cause a lot of guilt and grief. There have been times where I have been experiencing powerful flashbacks and did not recognize my own husband, resulting in lash outs and fear towards him being delusioned into thinking that he was out to hurt me, or had harmful intent for just existing in the same space as I was. 

For me, a single wiff of a familiar smell, hearing a sound, a certain color, an idea, a name, a passing thought or comment can throw my previously stable mental state into one of pure panic, hyperventilation, hallucination, delusion, fight-flight-freeze and reactionary responses. Through treatment I’ve developed adaptive and healthy coping skills and management responses but trauma responses can be so quick, and so unexpected that I don’t always have time to process my coping skills before my body and mind respond in negative ways. 

4. Decision making and skewed Behavior

Because living with DID, means living with a shared or fragmented consciousness, this often means that while I may not remember, my life is still being lived during my time of memory loss. Alters or parts will take control and operate my body, reacting to things, interacting with people, completing tasks and functioning. But oftentimes parts who take control are very different from myself, and make choices and decisions that I wouldn’t normally make, and sometimes decisions I wouldn’t *ever* make. An example of this is the fact that technically I am a conservative voter, despite myself as an individual having leftist or NDP views, or decisions to leave or apply for jobs and work positions that I have no interest in, or that I don’t even have the qualifications or physique to do, or leaving ones that I personally loved and excelled at. This also reflects a lot in everyday life in more subtle things, decisions like what food to eat, things to buy, activities to do shift between parts while they’re in control. 

To outsiders this can look a lot like impulsivity, lack of self-control, or lack of a sense of identity. This is a huge reason why a lot of DID patients are often misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder or Bipolar Disorder because the behaviour between alters can be so drastically different that it can look a *lot* like manic or depressive states. 

5. Denial and Dismissing Trauma

A very common experience among DID patients is denial and being dismissive or disregarding the things that happened to them. I often find myself in a state of questioning whether my symptoms, my disorder, and even my trauma were ever real to begin with. In therapy I find myself saying “It’s not that big of a deal” or “It wasn’t that big of a deal” more times than I’m actually saying anything productive. A huge part of this is why I wanted to make this list, because the media, and a lot of medical circles deny that DID exists or believe it’s impossibly rare and those, while both false, can cause intense feelings of “Maybe I’m just doing this for attention”. DID is a very real, very difficult disorder to diagnose, to treat, and to live with disorder, and while it is uncommon, statistics show that approximately 1-2% of western population is diagnosed, and up to a suspected 7% are living with the disorder undiagnosed because of these misconceptions. It is not common, and it’s not something that everyone is going to have, but it is a very possible response to very real trauma and is a valid diagnosis to give to those meeting the criteria. 

6. Hidden Symptoms

DID is often referred to as a “covert” presenting disorder. What this means is that most commonly outsiders, friends, family, employers and even the patient themselves can have a nearly impossible time recognizing the symptoms, and it often goes unnoticed until an event destabilizes the function of the person’s life. This can lead to a lot of backlash or denial coming from peers and family close to the person. This leads to the patient hearing a lot of:  “I’ve never noticed personality changes”, “You don’t act like you have it”, “You couldn’t possibly have that”, “No, I would have noticed”, “You have to be mistaken”, “There’s no way, it would have been obvious”. And so, so much more. The reality of DID is that it’s *not* noticeable. It’s a safety response that the brain created to protect the psyche from the intense damages that come with long term trauma experiences, so it’s often designed to hide itself from abusers or perceived threats as a way to compartmentalize trauma memories and maintain the ability to survive through stress and unstable situations. Not being able to “notice” is kind of the point in most cases.

 7. Wandering and Dissociative Episodes

Living with untreated or unmanaged DID can potentially be dangerous due to episodes of dissociation, “wandering” experiences (where the patient will wander away from home, family, or life in a confusion, attempt to return to a perceived life never lived, or in a state of belief that their current life is unsafe). For me this took a head last year, and was actually an event that led to the solidification that this disorder was the explanation to my experiences. According to nurses and my husband, I had wandered into the emergency room of a hospital in the middle of the night, with no idea who or where I was, with no idea how to return home, or even where home was. I was wearing a t-shirt, and it had been raining, and my body was so cold they needed to retake my vitals nearly 6 times because they were unable to get an appropriate reading. After discovering my identity, my husband was called to take me home. Working with a therapist helped to develop a safety plan during events like this to prevent harm from coming to my body, or from ending up in newly traumatic environments, but I was lucky. These situations can lead to re-traumatization, victimization, it can lead to kidnapping, assault, it can lead to being injured or harmed by environmental factors and so much more and it is so incredibly important that DID patients work with their therapist to develop solid safety plans proactively to make sure that the patient doesn’t experience any worst case scenarios during episodes like this. 

Conclusion

My experiences are individual to me, and to my psyche. Not everyone will experience the disorder the same way, because not everyone experiences or responds to trauma the same way. I am so lucky, and extremely privileged to be able to access consistent care and treatment, that I found a professional who trusts me, and is focused on stabilizing and supporting. Too many people living with this disorder have no access to supportive mental health care because of the misconceptions that parts of the medical field hold regarding the legitimacy or frequency that the disorder develops, and too many peers and circles of people outcast or disregard the very real, very difficult experiences because they don’t understand the disorder, or believe it doesn’t exist, or believe it looks like split. If you, or someone you know is struggling with Dissociative symptoms, or dissociative identity disorder do not be afraid to reach out to a professional for support, and educate yourself on the reality of the disorder. 

[firstagent]

Since it popped up on the Podcast, how would you rank the sibling dynamics from healthy to trainwreck?

This is an innocent-sounding question until you go over the franchise and realize just how many sibling relationships there are in Digimon and that all but like three of them have elements that might raise eyebrows. In the interest of being comprehensive, this includes all named characters in any anime, manga, and game I’m familiar with, treating the reboot separately and including Survive because... (looks at Kaito and Miu’s bios) ...holy crap.

Sibling Relationship Rankings! (Healthy is Higher)

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure): Shin understands Joe’s hang-ups and offers support to make his own choices without steering him in any specific direction, for or against the family. And Shuu exists too (depending on the language you’re watching in)

Juri & Masahiko Kato (Tamers): For all of the awkwardness and potential points of fracture in the family, Juri and Masahiko are very close. Fun Fact: She started carrying around her iconic hand puppet to amuse and entertain him!

Keito & Nozomi Tamada (Re:Arise): Even with very different personalities, Keito and Nozomi have a lot of respect for each other. Unlike some big brothers, he comes to a mature conclusion when he realizes she’ll be just fine with Pumpmon at her side.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure 2020): Yamato’s worry over Takeru only affects his reluctance to take on time-consuming side quests when he might be in danger. Far more chill about trusting Takeru with the rest of the team, he’s a motivation rather than a mental handicap.

Masaru & Chika Daimon (Savers): Perhaps a more controversial pick for the healthier side, but Masaru and Chika have a playful relationship that proves that Chika dishes out as much as anyone in the family. Given how much harm DATS and Digimon have done to the family, Masaru risks her love to keep them away from her.

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure 2020): Shin’s still supportive and still encourages Joe to make choices for himself, but having that bugout bag ready to go raises some serious questions about that family and which side Shin’s really on.

Ai & Makoto (Tamers): Toddlers fight. It’s okay. They come together for Impmon’s sake and the fact that they’re the only duo in the franchise with mutual custody over a digivice has to say something about the strength of their relationship.

Nene & Kotone Amano (Xros Wars Manga): Nene’s tactics are still desperate but not quite as extreme as the anime, and it counts for so much that Kotone fights so hard for Nene once the tables are turned. And good lord that backstory...

Takuya & Shinya Kanbara (Frontier): There’s definitely a sense of Takuya lapsing into thinking Shinya encapsulates everything frustrating about having an older brother, but he gets over it.

Miyako Inoue + Three (Zero Two): Perfectly normal large household. And while wondering what it would be like to be an only child is something every youngest does... top of mind fantasy, Miyako? Really?

Jianliang & Shaochung Lee (Tamers): Speaking of four-packs... there’s no doubting how much they care about each other, but Jian’s occasional short fuse with Shaochung betrays his usual calm demeanor, and we never get a picture of the full family dynamic once Rinchei and Jaarin are included.

Daisuke & Jun Motomiya (Zero Two): Everyone likes to paint Jun and Daisuke as something uglier than it really is. As much as they annoy each other, it’s still a pretty conventional sibling dynamic and they’d still fight hard for the other... even if the feeling’s closer to obligation.

Koji Minamoto & Koichi Kimura (Frontier): There’s no questioning the bond they develop, but there’s no way Koji and Koichi go from “don’t know the other exists” to “ZOMG Twinzies!” without a ton of awkwardness and feeling each other out. They’ll get better, but from our standpoint this is where we start to drift into trainwreck territory.

Tomoki & Yutaka Himi (Frontier): Tomoki can spin it all he wants but Yutaka comes off as a real jerk. Not that some resentment isn’t a little justified given how much Tomoki is coddled, but taking it upon himself to be the bearer of tough love is still not cool.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure 2020): Hikari has a blind faith that Taichi can save the day in any circumstance, up to and including international shipping crisis. Meanwhile Taichi sees Hikari lapsing between typical friendly eight year old to brainwashed robot and doesn’t find any problem with it.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure): Lessons in how not to be an overprotective big brother. Yamato freaks out at the slightest notion that Takeru might be exposed to danger, including his very presence in the Digital World. When you have a complete nervous breakdown realizing that little bro’s actually pretty capable on his own, it’s not about your relationship with him anymore.

Touma & Relena Norstein (Savers): There’s caring about a little sister, making her plight a central cause in your life, and then involving her in a chess match with a madman. There’s a lot to forgive here (they are raised in a family where your kneejerk reaction to Grandma is “I bet she supported the Nazis in World War II”), but everything about their relationship just makes you uncomfortable.

Kaito & Miu Shinonome (Survive): Maybe it’s not fair since their game is the franchise’s unicorn, but their bios have warning flags all over it. He’s overprotective, ready to fight at the slightest hardship, and she repays this attitude by being rebellious and weird and eager to pursue trouble. May end up being worse once the game actually comes out.

Rei & Hajime Katsura (Appmon): Another one where their backstory makes you sympathize with the lengths they go to in order to stay together, but risking the security of actual guardians to go it alone? Jesus. Even with their ride or die attitude, you still sense a bit of friction in their relationship, and so many of their hardships are their own doing. 

Nene & Yuu Amano (Xros Wars): There’s nothing seemingly wrong on the surface between Nene and Yuu, but that’s why their actions are so extreme. Yuu’s more than happy to treat her as an enemy general in his game, while Nene’s aligning herself with dark forces and causing real trouble to get him back. It’s all very loud and intense for a relationship that, without external influences, is just nice and cordial.

Yuuko & Yuugo Kamishiro (Cyber Sleuth): You can be anything you want on the internet! So why not take the identify of your big brother who was stricken with a mystery illness at a young age and lead a legion of hackers? And if you’re Yuugo, use your digital body to take control of that avatar! Nothing weird about any of this!

Ken & Osamu Ichijouji (Zero Two): Like Tomoki, Ken can come up with whatever rationale for Osamu’s abuse he wants, and Osamu at least had some kind moments, but there’s no denying that this family was a mess. And of course Ken’s reaction to Osamu’s death... could have been better.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure): Hikari’s introduction to the series was intended to be a little creepy, and that just sets the tone. Her blind loyalty to Taichi is a primary point of emphasis through three series, and Taichi sometimes goes ballistic worrying about her... when not accidentally endangering her life. And that’s before she unleashes a world-destroying abomination at the mere suggestion that Taichi’s dead, and why telling him “what you’re doing is wrong and I kind of hate you for it” is a big moment for her, even though she’s wrong.

Neo & Rei Saiba (V-Tamer): There’s going a little overboard to keep your family together or save a sibling’s life, and then there’s aligning yourself with evil forces to avoid having to deal with your sister’s manageable disability. Call it being jaded or delusional, but when it drives your sister to attempt suicide there are definitely issues you two need to work through.

Erika & Ryuji Mishima (Cyber Sleuth Hackers Memory): Because aligning oneself with Arkadimon is always a fantastic idea. He’s overprotective, she manipulates him because of it, there’s resentment, there’s anger, and basically the entire game is spent watching these two outdo each other in terms of causing wanton destruction throughout the city and cyberspace.

Honorable Mention: Bagramon & DarkKnightmon (Xros Wars): The battle of who can stab the other in the back last.

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[eaglehealthworks]

Lots of words, lots of meanings Pt. I

This entry is intended to bring a little educational understanding to those who are unsure of what all the different terms mean in the world of people with drug/alcohol/behavioral issues. For the sake of discussing the individual, he/she/they are known as such and will be in active use, active recovery, or active wellness (complete remission, perhaps). There are those that will state that one cannot be cured and there is only a state of recovery because the individual is never not addicted to whatever caused problems. I contend that an individual can achieve active wellness which would include complete abstinence and a life without psychoactive substances and/or other excessive repetitive patterns know as behavioral addictions (e.g., gambling, sex, shopping &c.) in healthy, sustainable, and satisfying ways.

Yes, if someone who has been in the throes of chemical dependency or behavioral disorder return to the substance and/or behavior, the cycle begins where it left off for many biological reasons. The point is it is absolutely possible and very much achievable to never return to that way of existing. If you follow medical orders after realizing a high blood pressure diagnosis, the problem becomes completely manageable. If you get your blood pressure down then revert back to a lifestyle which caused it to increase then guess what, it will return with a vengeance. Same exact thing.

I’ll step off of my “You can live well” pulpit and get into the terminology because the layers to wellness are many, deep, and worthy of their very own post(s) .

What is drug addiction, and should we use the term or its derivatives?

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA, 2019), it is “a chronic disease characterized by compulsive, or uncontrollable, drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences and changes in the brain, which can be long-lasting”. Note how it is considered a medical disease by the established medical community. This gets some people in a tizzy and those are often heard exclaiming, “You did this to yourself!, It’s not a disease!, Cancer is a disease!”, &c. The number one cause of death in these United States is heart disease caused largely by; you guessed it, the sufferer (Weatherspoon, 2019). Smoking, diet, overweight, sedentary, all contribute significantly to this problem. Those previously mentioned anger mongers will often retort “Yeah, well it is also genetic!”, and so is chemical dependency (Johns Hopkins, 2021).

Whether or not the term is used or not is always up for debate, and only time will determine its existence. Addiction as a term is fairly straightforward and accurate; however, the term addict is filled with negative connotation, stereotype, and stigma. I can assure you that easily half of everyone I have ever treated looks and behaves just like every other citizen walking around in any neighborhood anywhere. Rich, poor, elderly, young, and all points in between describe people with substance use disorders and behavioral addictions, many of whom you would never guess. I have also known many straight edge folks who the average American might easily mistake for someone who abuses drugs based on appearance alone.

How does someone get diagnosed?

Well, it must be done by a licensed and qualified medical professional who has spent many years in study and has the student debt to prove it. Or you can generally ask someone who is suspected of having a problem with drugs, alcohol, or circumstance and they will know if it can be controlled or if help is needed. This does not take into account those in denial or fear of losing something by the very nature of the question (like safety, shelter, liberty, &c). In the case of the former, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-V) by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) uses the following criteria to determine whether a problem exists and/or the degree of severity if present (APA, 2013):

A. A problematic pattern of [insert substance or circumstance] use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by at least two of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:

1.     [insert substance or circumstance, e.g., alcohol, opioids, gambling, &c.]  are often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended.

2.     There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control [insert substance or circumstance] use.

3.     A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the [insert substance or circumstance], use the [insert substance or circumstance], or recover from its effects.

4.     Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use [insert substance or circumstance].

5.     Recurrent [insert substance or circumstance]  use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home.

6.     Continued [insert substance or circumstance]  use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of [insert substance or circumstance].

7.     Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of [insert substance or circumstance]  use.

8.     Recurrent [insert substance or circumstance]  use in situations in which it is physically hazardous.

9.     Continued [insert substance or circumstance]  use despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance.

10.  Tolerance, as defined by either of the following:

a.      A need for markedly increased amounts of [insert substance or circumstance]  to achieve intoxication or desired effect.

b.     A markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of an [insert substance or circumstance]. (Note: This criterion is not considered to be met for those taking [insert substance or circumstance]  solely under appropriate medical supervision.)

11.  Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:

a.      The characteristic [insert substance or circumstance]  withdrawal syndrome (refer to Criteria A and B of the criteria set for [insert substance or circumstance]  withdrawal).

b.     [insert substance or circumstance]  (or a closely related substance) are taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms. (Note: This criterion is not considered to be met for those individuals taking [insert substance or circumstance]  solely under appropriate medical supervision.)

NONE – Presence of 0-1 symptoms

MILD – Presence of 2-3 symptoms

MODERATE – Presence of 4-5 symptoms

SEVERE – Presence of 6 or more symptoms 

Questions? Anyone? Let’s keep moving. Now with this information held firmly in your mind, you still need to be properly credentialed in order to affix a legitimate diagnosis to anyone, so this is for informational purposes only. Here are a few more terms to add to your lexicon though:

1.     Drug Intoxication. This is elusive because many people with a substance use disorder(s) have been using for so long that their strange and erratic behavior has become accepted traits. Often the presence of intoxication is a sudden change in demeanor, i.e., one moment a person is restless and anxious, they go to the bathroom and after emerging proceed to pass-out after sitting down anywhere (opioids). Or an individual is nervous and even a little shaky but after a few moments alone returns happy, smooth in gait, and chatty (alcohol). Perhaps a loved one is lethargic and grumpy, but after returning from the bathroom is full of energy and talking a mile a minute (cocaine, methamphetamine). Of course, there are many indicators, but you get the point.

2.     Drug Abuse. The continued use of a psychoactive drug or behavioral patterns despite the knowledge that it is causing social, occupational, psychological, or physical problems (APA, 2013). Put simply, doing something to excess where the consequences outweigh the benefits; An ice cream cone is great, a half-gallon  makes you vomit (in most cases).

3.     Drug Dependence. Maladaptive pattern of use resulting in significant impairment or distress, as shown by compulsive use, increased tolerance, withdrawal, and obsessive thoughts about it (APA, 2013).

 You know, the word withdrawal has been presented several times in this post and it deserves its own little section because it is this experience alone that keeps more people in active use than any other single precipitating factor. The human mind is in a constant state of seeking homeostasis or normal acceptable functioning. All people, not just those with drug/alcohol issues seek the avoidance of pain. Ok, somewhere there is a body builder claiming no pain no gain but let that pain be a sciatic or tooth nerve and he/she is reduced to a tower of gelatin seeking immediate relief.

 This next sentence is a value statement directly from the horse; withdrawal is an exquisitely harrowing experience engulfing the entirety of the human experience and reducing it to the most detestable overall sensation of prolonged living death. The only relief which is desperately sought and despised simultaneously is more of the substance that caused it. I really don’t know a better way to explain it. I know of septuagenarian Rockwellesque grandmothers who have sold themselves for heroin because their medical provider overprescribed opioids for years and due to pressure from governing authorities cut them off, just to avoid withdrawal. People question this but its sadly true, and not even the worst of the stories.

 If you ever want to chat with me about this or anything else related to relief from substance and/or circumstance please contact me here or at the clinic. Feel free to click on any of the links provided for more reading. Thanks for taking the time, enjoy.

-        Edesepam

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596

Johns Hopkins. (2021). Substance Abuse / Chemical Dependency. Retrieved from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/substance-abuse-chemical-dependency on 2021, June 30.

NIDA. (2019, January 17). Treatment Approaches for Drug Addiction DrugFacts. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/treatment-approaches-drug-addiction on 2021, June 30

Weatherspoon, D. (2019, March 29). What Are the 12 Leading Causes of Death in the United States? Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/health/leading-causes-of-death on 2021, June 30.

[i-am-vpelno]

BRYCE MOSELEY MIGHT BE MAGNIFICENT CURTIS WHO MIGHT BE A ROGUE RACHE BARTMOSS AI CRACK POT THEORY

Okay from the top make it pop it’s a whack ass theory, it takes a lot a reach of thought but it’s an interesting query.

Let’s start with some facts and reasonable assumptions before I jump into it. By 2013 Alt Cunningham was the best Netrunner in Night City and just about done with the Soulkiller program. Rache Bartmoss was also the most prolific and paranoid hacker in Night City. He believed that mega corporations were using tech and info to oppress people. Now, an assumption. Who’s the say they hadn’t met, at the very least they had to be aware of each other. The same year, the Netwatch US Branch was created.

2021, after sealing himself inside a hollowed out fridge in the middle of nowhere so he could monitor the Net and prepare the Data Krash, Rache Bartmoss died after the life support to the fridge failed. This triggered a virus that hacked into every data cache, classified file, and, unintentionally, artificial intelligence programs. Suddenly the Net was flooded with untethered AI and every corporation’s secrets laid bare. Another part of Rache’s virus was a his own RABIDS AI. It’s not clear how far the AI went to conform to Rache’s personality but there are rumors that they killed netrunners in order to gain more bandwidth.

Through the 2020’s society attempted to recover from the Krash by returning to internet less data storage and methods of performing tasks previously rendered obsolete by the Net. However, as time went on, countries began individually recovering by creating their own versions of Net. This meant that several different “Internets” existed for different countries and Mega Corporations that all had their own perplexities such as boundaries in Cyberspace that shifted depending on which Corporation had control or even if the weather didn’t allow for the boundary to reach that far. The Net most important to this theory was Pacifica. This Net that arose covers the entire Pacific Ocean as well as *Australia*, West coast of the USA, Japan, Russia and Hong Kong. It’s boundaries are flexible and strong enough to compensate for other Nets when they’re having issues.

Now I know that this is dense and I’m not an expert but read closely. Imagine if Google didn’t just control your browser settings but could see your history, what you searched, controlled what you saw AND could send you to jail at any time your activity seemed suspicious. This is the problem with the current state of the Net. Constant supervision and tailored search results, kind of like what we have now except theres no ad blocker or VPNS and the only way to access the free unmonitored stuff puts you at risk of getting fried.

In 2023 Johnny silverhand destroyed Arasaka’s access point to their Net, Mikoshi, freeing Alt.

This is where Netwatch comes in. No one really took the company seriously until a figure called Magnificent Curtis arose. Previously known as *Rocky*, Curtis nurtured a strict and effective team that lead to Pacifica becoming the nose secure, fair and pleasing version of the Net out there. Curtis is known to be a calm perfectionist with a lethal edge. The name Rocky could either be a reference to the fictional boxer, the slang term “Rock” which means to beat the shit out of someone’s head specifically, or Rocky from ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ a fictional character created by a mad scientist to be the sexy version of Frankenstein.

2030 A mysterious vlogger called UR (you are) pops up with the company Ziggurat. The company is quickly allied with Night Corp and immediately begins producing their own high quality Nets all over the world.

Sometime in the 2040s the Blackwall is finally created by Netwatch. An insanely dense firewall meant to keep the AI in. It’s rumored that the only way they were able to complete the Blackwall was with the help of untethered AI that also wanted to block the corrupted Net for some reason. This is when Alt becomes trapped beyond the black wall.

2043 UR spreads their popular Nets to Netwatch source England and Australia. By the 2070’s there are rumors and claims by Sandra Dorset that Night Corps has an AI focused on brainwashing employees into complacency.

Now that we have that out of the way, here’s how it connects. If we can assume Rache and Alt knew each other, we can also assume he might’ve lifted some ideas for RABIDS. Rache’s AI we’re meant to carry out his will and also would’ve ended up untethered by his own virus. We know that at least one of his living colleagues, Spider Murphy, who held a similar world view to him believed that what he’d done was a mistake. Let’s assume that Rache would’ve agreed, then the AI would’ve agreed too. Then let’s say two of the AI decided they needed to fix this mistake. Maybe they highjacked some borg bodies or one of the gangs who wanted the AI’s to be free provided them with bodies. They called one Rocky because he was a Sexy Frankenstein and the other UR a play on God’s I AM from the Bible. I think it would be neat if Rache was the real founder of Netwatch, the inside being the best place to protect people from corps. Anyway, Rocky and UR join Netwatch, possibly revealing their true identities and gain trust by helping create the new Nets. Rocky finds his calling, UR is left unfulfilled. They find Alt after Mikoshi is destroyed in 2023 and see that she’s bent on absorbing all the data she can to destroy Arasaka. UR and Rocky, now Magnificent Curtis, work together with Netwatch to create the Blackwall. UR leaves soon after and creates Ziggurat, he is the AI brainwashing Nightcorp employees. Meanwhile, Curtis is spreading Netwatch to every corner of the Net proficiently. In one of these corners there is whispers about the VooDoo Boys trying to get in contact with Alt. Fearful about what they might unleash, Magnificent Curtis goes undercover as Bryce Mosley to take care of the situation himself.

The Magnificent Curtis name could be a reference to the magnificent seven movie, a cowboy film about a ragtag group of gunslingers hired by less fortunate people to take care of a group of outlaws.

A comment V makes comparing Netwatch to villains who think they are heroes is misinterpreted by Bryce Mosley. The Western genre is full of tropes that are similar to Rache Bartmoss’ experience being an outlaw fighting for the right reasons. The slang term “cowboy” means a sexy deckjockey, I think that could be related to how Rache saw himself.

UR could be Mr. Blue Eyes. The mind control of Night Corp’s employees is eerily similar to the Peralez case and the Crystal Palace heist could be a way for the AI to gather more data on humans or use the Crystal Palace as some sort of mind control beacon.

Told you it was a crack pot. Hope you enjoyed!

[okurrroye]

Ok all I wanted was to laugh about John getting curb stomped but the Ayo tag is a fucking nightmare like wow

Disclaimer I have shit memory so if I say something that doesn’t add up fact wise let me know. But I’m pissed off so here we go-

(FYI all of your opinions should be kept to yourself, so don’t comment if you fail to read my entire post so thanks)

I know this has been discussed, but there are things that have been left out of the argument, or hasn’t even been considered when it comes to the big I speak no I see no I hear no evil scene y’all making it out to be of Ayo disarming Bucky. So gather around here’s the part where you hear me out without scrolling off regardless of your stance on the situation, because I’m here for all opinions afterwards.

First off I can’t even understand why this is controversial at all considering the history that led to this moment. Oh wait I lied it’s literally because either you have your head to far up Bucky’s ass or because he’s a man or because he’s white, or because *ding ding ding * all of the above. And now you’re mad because how dare this black bitch have the nerve-the audacity to do that to poor little old Bucky (now insert the part where you either scroll off, or put your two unwanted cents in before I finish). And this is where you all want to use the empty ass belief that ThE aRm Is A gIfT, or empty ass excuse tHaT’s HiS aRm. Also someone else pointed out well if they didn’t trust him than they shouldn’t have given it to him in the first place. Which yes all are true, but also not at the same time. *Gasp* yes somethings can not be one or other, because ✨ grey area ✨.

Now I don’t know what world you’re living in where you think a gift can not be taken back, and I use the term gift loosely because you can’t even call it that honestly. Because in reality the whole reason he has the arm in the first place is because he needed a new one for infinity war like duh, why have crap heap that’s easily damageable when they can make an indestructible one, to live or not to live like it’s not a hard choice. Then he disappeared for five years so it would be kinda difficult to get an arm back that doesn’t exist anymore. But by the time everyone came back I think an arm was at the bottom of their to do list, or not to mention the fact well it’s already been made, and you probably don’t know how to properly function without both arms yet and can’t afford a normal one yourself so why not just keep it instead of wasting all the time, effort, and resources of making it, but idk I guess that’s a stretch. But since people likes using the gift excuse guess what, a gift is just something you couldn’t afford to do yourself so someone else was kind enough to do it for you (^^^), but in every other since of the word it really belongs to them not you. So let’s give an example shall we, now your parent(s) gave you something you wanted (shit someone else may have bought it for you) but you fucked around and got in trouble and now you’re grounded. Now depending on your parent(s) you’ll either get your ass beat or your shit will get confiscated, or both if you fuck up enough. Now do you think you have any right to say what they can or can’t do? -Yeah I didn’t think so and if you thought otherwise well here comes round two of another ass whopping or the first one if you’re lucky. Or on rare occasions some (white) kids don’t get physically disciplined, but you’re still going to pay the price regardless.

So same situation (yes I know I can’t compare an amputees arm to an object, but I only say that because Bucky is more than that, more than just a arm) but also very much not because in Bucky’s and Ayo’s situation it is much-MUCH worse obviously, but apparently it’s not obvious considering that there’s a debate in the first place. Or in other words you think Bucky’s feelings-FEELINGS are more important then Ayo’s and Wakanda the truth. Which is you’re lucky that it was only his feelings that got hurt, because she (and Yama) could have killed him and everyone else in that room easily so let’s all thank Ayo (and Yama) for her kindness and mercy first and foremost, also for not taking back both the arm and the shield completely. Because that arm and shield is Wakandan property ok so let’s get that straight, so she had every right to take it if she wanted to-whenever or wherever (which also falls into the part where the Dora does has jurisdiction there, and almost anywhere else since most likely every country wants or have vibranium now, and because Wakanda could literally flatten the whole world so yeah they’re going to have a legal pass because who’s gonna want to fuck with them) but she didn’t key word didn’t which should’ve been a clue they would never take the arm or shield back because he is disabled considering even after what Bucky (& John) did.

Not only is it the property of Wakanda but it’s from the only place that was willing, and did help Bucky in every way a person could be helped literally saving this man physically, mentally, and emotionally- like please. Specifically the royal family themselves firsthand which need I remind you is related to the former King that was killed by the man that Bucky escaped from prison without discussing it with them first. That same King, family, and country that Ayo is from, loves, and is to serve and protect. That she will-IS sacrificing and dedicates her life to...she failed them all-failed herself when T’Chaka was murdered like bruh- like that should speak for it self like that is the ultimate betrayal like he literally spat in their fucking face, especially Ayo’s considering she’s the one who gave Bucky back his mind, his freedom and after all that after everything they did for him they still didn’t trust him, and betrayed him by not telling him he had a fail safe in his arm?! Yeah-no big sike, anyone with a brain knows prosthetics because here’s the real kicker ITS NOT HIS ARM thus it’s O M G...removable. Yes you read that correctly r-e-m-o-v-a-b-l-e. Now put that together with the fact that Ayo is highly skilled and an overall badass I don’t think it would be that hard for her to fucking figure out how to dislocate it with a few pressure points considering that’s literally the whole point of striking a pressure point (if he still had his arm then that hit would’ve stopped it from working, but since it’s fake that mf popped right off). Pressure points are used to disable someone, thus Ayo disabling a disabled by disarming his arm to deescalate the situation go figure. It wasn’t a fail safe it’s just skill and common sense that everyone failed to have in the moment and used as a last resort because oh no Bucky’s face, like boo fucking hoo he did it to himself by breaking their trust first, and defending that bitch. Instead of him waiting for the Dora to have Zemo in custody first, what did Bucky do instead? He had the fucking audacity (and that’s how you use the word) to use that same arm against Ayo, against Wakanda. That speaks volumes considering out of respect as a friend or whatever close bond they have (because they definitely have a connection after what they went through together) Ayo still gave him a warning, and time to do what he had to do before they came for Zemo’s ass. Let it be known she didn’t have to do that at all because her loyalty is to and should be to her country first but in those eight hours it wasn’t, it was in the trust of their friendship so therefore she literally was endangering her well being by giving Bucky just that courtesy, and I don’t think you all consider her position in that predicament and thanks to Bucky she could’ve gotten her status revoked, thrown in jail, or worse killed for disobeying orders because let’s not forget Chadwick unfortunately has passed away, and thus it’s a fact that T’Challa is no longer in charge since Marvel will respect that with tampering with his character, so I don’t want to hear she would’ve been just fine because we’ve seen how the royal counsel has a big say on what goes and doesn’t go considering they did not give a single fuck about their own next of kin, Erik who has every right as them, but would have easily killed him just because he was an ‘outsider’ if T’Challa didn’t speak up for him (I mean they abandoned him while leaving him to fend for himself, killed his father and covered it up so wouldn’t put it past them). So if you think when Ayo fucked up again about retrieving Zemo because she trusted, and helped this outsider over her own kind she definitely would’ve been considered a traitor and be punished for her actions.

Can you imagine the hurt, and betrayal they felt? No apparently not, because it’s all about how he’s disabled and how could she take his arm (like uh she literally left it, and the shield for them to keep, and it’s not like he would’ve died without it to begin with unlike Bucky who was willing to sacrifice Ayo’s entire livelihood) when the fact that disabled people say constantly for others to stop putting their disabilities before them, and how they’re just as capable as everyone else. “They are a someone with a disability, not someone who is disabled,” which is absolutely true, because they’re more than that but everyone seems to forget that all of sudden when Ayo detaches Bucky’s arm (I wonder why) and all of sudden he doesn’t have control of his own body like what- he literally used his entire body nonbrainwashed to stab them in the back like miss me with that bs. Him spending five seconds without his arm doesn’t compare especially since they forgave him without even at least an apology at that.

Detaching his arm was a warning that he needed to learn, because they were letting him know, and I emphasize that that arm does not belong to him so how he dare try to use it against the people who gave it to him after they fed, housed, and freed him when no one else could, or would when he’s done nothing in return while as a repayment was being a fucking ingrate. All the while facing no consequences, not even the need for a fucking bandaid *mic drop*.

[jageunyeoujari]

‘idea’ & self-knowledge as love as freedom

w thanks to @radiatingdyke​​ & henrik !!

so in a previous post, i talked abt spectacle & respect in criminal for context. now starting off w henrik’s thoughts re: plato:

"It’s honestly pretty ambiguous what Plato means by it- at least in the republic- The core theory is that ideal forms are a truer kind of reality than the shadows. The philosopher escapes a cave of shadows projected on the wall by a ruling class, the only “reality” they ever knew and were literally bound to. They crawl through a treacherous passage to find themselves face to face with the dazzling light of the sun which blinds them temporarily, and as their eyes adjust they find themselves in a forest and realize the shadow puppet of “tree” was not the real tree all along! For what the shadows are: Idk how developed popular media/conventional politics were at the time but we (America) based a lot of our shit on it so I think one strong possibility is we find ourselves in a modern allegory of the cave where the shadows dancing on the wall are the world as it’s told to us- through news education and policy and the “real” is personal experience and genuine community. Then shadows would then be actual reality as we know it, including the real trees and personal experience, a veil placed over us by metaphysical forces which can be lifted through Godwork to reveal the true nature of the inner workings of the universe. The last part of the allegory is that the philosopher returns to the cave to free the other prisoners and spread the light”

so while criminal is the revelation in the toxic cycle of the idol culture & mutual destruction & obsession are confused for love, idea is making the decision to learn what true love & connection is, leaving behind the suffocating expectations demanded by the industry, & in the process, become complete in his humanity.

so we first see taemin in jail, condemning himself for his role in the toxic parasocial relations of idol culture, and literally... calling himself out.... altho i would say that this:

in criminal is purgatory proper, the jail may be the end point of his journey there. he confesses his sins, his soul gets purified, & then next we see him in the bar which is confirmed to be heaven (which happens to look much like lee soo man's office) while the flashy models stare at taemin, the walking dead, the posh people in suits (likely executives) ignore him. 

so here we have taemin trying to fit in seemlessly in this world of the elites who have the highest level of control in the idol industry. here, he is assured his status as the best & now guaranteed to be free of pain... but on their terms. there is shallow comfort but nothing else. the others content w playing games & eating delicacies, surrounded by alcohol, but are contained to sitting, indulging in frivolities, & passively looking on but no chance of connection. the bar is just another form of intoxication, but unlike criminal where there is at least an illusion of attaining love, heaven is merely stagnant. this idealized heaven of the elites cannot give true freedom as it is based on sterility & exclusivity, just another form of social control. "the dangerous dream that swallowed me is proven by you." staying here would be another form of self-betrayal & denial of the love he seeks so he rebels against heaven through his dancing, an affirmation of his life.

taemin then being shocked that all these shadow versions of himself are not the truth... silvery dissolving forms... his identity fragmenting............ but still taemin still can't break away from the illusion that the adoration & fame he receives as an idol could be actually hurting him.

as @radiatingdyke has talked about, BoA's 'killing me' line is reminiscent of korean shamans channeling gods. significant that it is BoA who he channels as they are both similar, debuting at a very young age & have been massive stars ever since then. "you are my messiah" BoA cuts him off, speaking the truth. this isn't who he rly is or what he actually wants. he must face himself & the truth or he will die. 

the mirror steps are i think symbolic of plato's ladder of love. to my understanding, the ladder of love is basically about how the aim of life is the ascension of the soul to heaven. the gods can do this as a god's soul is in perfect balance w all the different aspects of itself which makes them necessarily wise & good. humans' souls are in disarray, however, & it is this conflict between all parts of the soul which makes it difficult for us to follow the gods to heaven. to do this, people have to understand the true Form of beauty, by climbing the ladder of love. the steps start from loving a body which one is attracted to due to physical beauty & by understanding the beauty of this body, one can then consider how the beauty of one body is found in all bodies. the progression goes on from loving more broadly until we come to the last step, love of knowledge & wisdom. now one is able to see the actual form of Beauty, bringing harmony to your soul. so in order to taemin to finally know peace within himself, he has to know how to love.

& the progression of the ladder implies for me that by first learning to care for others but understanding who they are in their completeness & beauty, you eventually are able to learn to care for yourself & see the beauty in your own soul. & on the flip side, the better able you care for yourself, the more you are able to care for others. i'll discuss this more when i go into my thoughts on act 2 as a whole but basically, the rest of act 2 has a truly warm & loving atmosphere when taemin speaks to the other. in comparison, act 1 presents his experience of 'love' as enmeshment, painful, confusing, losing his self of sense to cater to the desires of the other. there are feelings of obligation to stay in this destructive relationship bc that’s his prescribed role & anyway, any attention is better than none at all. 

ppl w a poor sense of self can readily suffer mistreatment for the sake of a semblance of connection, confusing obsession for love when what’s rly happening is actually cathexis, an investment of emotions. while care & affection can exist w cathexis, as does happen in fans’ relations w idols, this is not the same thing as love which liberates & cultivates growth in yourself & the other. fans’ obsession w idols quickly flipping to hate when idols stray from the designated persona of perfection is investment in that image but is not real love. in act 1, he does not understand the other clearly for what it is, destruction that must end, & the fact that he is suffering. without such awareness, he is incapable of truly giving & receiving love. 

& while act 2 does have similar themes of taking on other's pain, it becomes a stark contrast to act 1 bc he does so from a place of utter assurance of his identity & true self-love, not from the fear of being left alone. he loves himself for who he is so he is able to love for ourselves purely as well.

& as @radiatingdyke has said (& in much more detail than i can) the ladder reflecting the sky can also be a reference to indigenous korean beliefs where the sky represents the entire universe. the creator god is Hanulnim, literally sky god.  

 also, even tho NGDA as a whole is replete w western imagery & references & v catholic, the overarching narrative of the 2 albums don't feel western to me in that there never is a fight between good & evil. a typical western narrative would be more like there would the defeat of like 'criminal' taemin by 'good' taemin or an obvious redemption arc. & to me, idea doesn't read so much as he confronts & then accepts both the good & the bad in him but that he leaves behind these limited concepts altogether & instead connects back to the true essence of the universe & becomes free to be utterly himself.

he’s struggled so much over the course of his career w figuring out how to reconcile the duality of himself, what it means to be authentic as an idol, wishing for his true self to be seen & appreciated. it’s always been looking outward for that validation but skirting away from revealing the whole truth of himself... & idea is the final answer to all that. no more denial, repression, burning away of the past, configuration to other ppl’s desires, no more use of mystery as a defense against the fear of being rejected if people see him for who he really is. he accepts himself for who he is & that’s all that matters.

in classic gaytholic taem fashion, he compares himself to jesus + mary + other divinity in NGDA imagery but ultimately, taemin is done w being both a god & the condemned. “i’ve finally opened my eyes.” he’s never been anything but a human being & he’s showing us all the beauty in that.

[dallonm-archive]

So I Turned Church Mud Into A Novel Lol Oops | NaNoWriMo 2020

Folks the JOURNEY I have been on in the last 3 days. I’ve been on a great albeit chaotic Church Mud high and it led to? This? 

For those who don’t know, Church Mud is meant to be a ~7k words short story for my writing dissertation (and it still is). I attempted to do Draft Zero over summer, completely missed the mark, pretended it didnt exist for a month and here we are. One thing I learnt from that attempt though was that there is a much wider story to be told than what we’d see in those 7k words. Back then I was content with it only existing as a short story, not having all the parts told, because I liked the idea of Felix and Dorothy existing in this small window with a happy ending that’d otherwise be temporary. But I cannot help myself :)  I met my advisor on Wednesday and reaffirmed that I’m at a really good place with this story in terms of ideas, themes and character - what’s missing was just the plot. So that’s what I’ve been working on (and killing my sleep schedule over) since, and what happened was:  I realise most of my ideas wouldn’t fit the short story --> But they’d work in a novel --> So I guess I’m writing Church Mud as a novel after I graduate? --> But I kinda wanna write it now --> But I can’t --> But I want to --> Chloe your dissertation --> Hey you want more novel content? Here’s chapter titles --> God I Can’t Wait To Write This As A Novel --> Hey that thing where you write a novel in a month is happening soon...could be a...perfect excuse to...….,,,

So I had a ~revelation~ at 4am: why can’t I write it now? NaNoWriMo coincides with when I’m meant to brainstorm this story, so why don’t I take what I have and pants it as a novel, intentionally #LoseNano2020 and use what I wrote to infer what the short story will look like whilst also have a Draft Zero to work with/finish/rewrite next year? I debated if this was a good idea because it felt ~unconventional~ but I realised that a) I want to write this as a novel anyway and b) this is where I’m loving the project and that’s what matters and c) makes it feel less like uni work lol  I’ve spent the all day playing around with what Church Mud The Novel would look like, and not only am I o b s s e s s e d but it also taught me? so much? about the short story? I was worried it’d get complicated but from the vague plot idea I have, I have a clear vision of Church Mud The Short Story separate from the novel, but I also see how it would fit into the novel as a chapter, and seeing where it’d fit in has really helped me figure out where it sits in the twins’ lives and so many elements I hadn’t considered before. I believe very strongly in Writers Intuition and my intuition is telling me that this is the direction I need to go with this project. My only issue is Church Mud doesn’t fit as a title for the novel at all and was never going to be the title, but I really don’t care oop, I’m not titling it until next year unless I come up with a title so good I want to change the short story as well lmao. But other than that this is working so well for me and really catalysed the momentum I already had atm for this story. I’ve also wanted to rework how I share Church Mud things here and this is a perfect way to at least for the next month, but before I ramble more lets actually talk about where the story is!

CHURCH MUD

Genre: literary fiction Setting: California (+ probably some other states? Idk I’m not American wtf is a state), 1986 POV: third person present + retrospective moments, split between twins Felix and Dorothy The Vibes: hazy summers, hot air, 3am, saltwater breeze, grainy photographs, empty roads at night, the moon blurred by clouds, arms resting out car windows, abandoned churches, telephone boxes, getting lost on purpose, cigarette smoke, dust from an old Bible Deals with: faith & the weaponization of it to control others, identity, perceptions of reality, chosen family, independence v co-dependence, free will, trauma & what it means to “let go”

CONTENT WARNINGS: religion/religious imagery (specifically Christianity), trauma, toxic relationships, inferred addiction (all updates will be tagged with these/any more specific warnings) 

This is still in very early conception, in the sense of it’s existence as a novel, but it’s definitely an expansion on the ideas I had for the short story, where these two seek to let go of their past together so they can live their own, new lives, and also restore their tangled relationship that could never be fixed through letters and distant contact.  When Dorothy left the controlling religious cult she grew up in, she never gave herself a chance to properly process the complicated emotions that came with that decision, or the trauma she went through, opting to cope with it by putting all her energy into building her new life and embracing her identity. Watching her brother navigate the same new, confusing path she took four years ago forces her to look back on her own experience, and the repressed memories of events that prompted her to leave in the first place. When Felix catches up with her, he struggles with the realisation that adjusting to this new life and world won’t be easy, and whilst it was the right choice, his impulsive decision has ramifications. Trauma does not necessarily stay in the place you associate it with and for Felix, it’s like seeing all of it from a birds eye view, all at once, including everything he blocked out. With his faith, his sister, and his drive to be a good person, he has hope for himself and the world, but the pain and anger he harbours will not make it easy for him. ^by no means a pitch literally just the copy paste of the quick summary I wrote for myself lmao

The most exciting part of this to me is how different, yet similar the novel feels. This version of the story isn’t necessarily happier, it’s still rough around the edges, but it’s definitely from a different mindset and there’s this haziness to it that doesn’t exist in the short story. It feels like a grainy home video that they’d never let see the light of day. I wouldn’t call it dreamlike or softer because of this, but there is this distinct tonal shift from the short story to the novel that I can only describe through the aforementioned Vibes. As I said, I have an idea of where the short story would fit into the novel’s timeline as a chapter, but they still won’t be the same. The short story is obviously more restricted to one singular event, and that turns the intensity and tension up high. This difference is also 100% influenced by the fact that the short story is set only at night (bar for some potential flashbacks), and the night plays a huge thematic and atmospheric role. Of course parts of the novel will take place at night, but the presence of daytime changes the mindset to me? In the short story it feels like they’re stuck in this perpetuate-esque night, whereas in the novel you know that the sun will always rise.

This story is also very different aesthetically, but at the same time elements of the short story’s aesthetic come into play and clash with the unique aesthetic of the novel, where they coexist, but are also in conflict with each other. As you can tell from these two moodboards where you can really see how for the second I gave up trying to make it coherent lmao: 

To me there are two distinct aesthetics, and they are both very different and exist in different ways, but they are both inherently part of the story, and it feeds into this idea of perception of reality and these two realities that the twins perceive: the “outside world” and the gated world they grew up in.

The stars of the show, my favourite disaster twins:

Not fragile, but not made of stone either

Loves very hard, sometimes more than she’d like 

A protective and loyal soul, especially with those she loves, but she never wants to forget to protect herself 

If I’m in love with my best (female) friend, no I’m not <3

-goes to the edge of the pier and stares wistfully at the ocean so everyone knows that I am the main character- 

Loves her brother more than anyone else but is struggling to figure out his new role in her life. As teenagers she felt painfully tethered to him because they were always The Twins, and she had nobody else, as adults she hopes to find a balance between their deeply close bond and their harshly different lives 

Arc driven by defining your identity and then redefining it, and facing the parts of it you’d rather lock far away. Also deals with her experience growing up as a girl in a religious cult in the 60s/70s, and the relationship faith has with her feminist identity. 

As of now, there’s more focus on him in the novel, since the short story focuses on Dorothy and I feel to write him from an observer perspective I need to get into his head first 

Just found out restarting your life completely is hard?

Trying to be a good person, wants to be a good person, but there’s an anger in him that he hates but it’s festering and it’s growing

But ultimately he is a sweet and soft person and that’s what he wants to be in life even though it’s hard, it shows especially with his sister

I think at some point he locks himself in a cabin and? I would too

Centred around perception of trauma and v influenced by my own experiences with that, where you think things will be easier as soon as you leave that situation but really it just makes you look at everything from a distance and be like “what the fuck?? that actually happened??” (which conflicts with the fact that you KNOW you’re in a better place and you would never go back, but it hurts and it’s hard especially understanding the placement of your trauma in this new space) 

I need to give this dude and his sister a happy ending for my own wellbeing. I don’t know how that’ll look but these two will get their happy endings. I actually don’t think I’ve loved two characters more and I love all my characters deeply 

And I think that’s all for now! This 100% was not the direction I expected to take but I am so glad I did, and I also love the opportunity to reintroduce this story because good Lord it’s changed so much (and this instance is the most change). I also think this is the perfect Nano scenario for me, as someone who’s never done it before, there’s zero pressure on me to “win” because I don’t expect to even finish this. I’m just going to see where it takes me and see what it’s given me at the end of the month.  I’m also not outlining this at all lmao, one because me and outlines do not get along but also my Preptober is just. the work I have to do for my dissertation anyway, which is reading and gathering a lot of fiction/nonfiction about cults/religion, and all the weird and unhinged takes on it. It’s very slow but it’s also fun! My uni work this weekend is literally to read The Girls by Emma Cline so I think I won here?? I also want to dedicate the rest of October to the short stories I planned to write for Nano (I was going to work on my collection).

I don’t know if I’ll do a taglist for this - I have the og Church Mud one but like I said I’m rethinking how I want to share this story and updates for this will only be regular in November so?? But chances are I will be constantly on my bullshit for the next month and a half with this story, pretty update or no pretty update 

My NaNoWriMo page is here, although fair warning I have No idea how this site works, this is my boomer moment. Excited to clown about this story though!

- Chloe 

[vividaway]

Maybe instead of focusing on Joey and Daniel calling Gabbie out (which is their right. If Gabbie can call out them for what she perceives as bad working conditions, than they have every right to refute her claims), you and the rest of the stans should address the latest information about Bianca that has been brought to light as well as the fact that Gabbie stalked someone online who happened to be underaged.

PLEASE CONSIDER SIGNING TO MAKE BIANCA'S LAW REAL. https://www.change.org/p/bianca-s-law-stop-the-spread-of-violent-and-graphic-images-on-the-internet

BEFORE ALL OF THIS LET ME SAY: your use of Bianca Devins in this disgusting manipulative way is exactly that-- disgusting and manipulative. my twitter messages are open, so to not only track down my tumblr, but ANONYMOUSLY LEAVE A MESSAGE TRYING TO USE BIANCA'S NAME LIKE THIS? DIS-FUCKING-GUSTING.

___

Alright, here's a concept.

It's not Joey and Daniels place to refute Gabbie's claims. Their main point in all of this was "She never filled out the form! It's all her fault!" which is actually irrelevant to the story, seeing as she had told them PERSONALLY. in a FACE TO FACE INTERACTION.

the fact of the matter is, as the showrunner, and literal creator of the show, it is your responsibility to ensure the safety of ALL of your cast and crew. and yes, this does include the mental well-being (of the rest of the cast)--

-- and on that note, i also need to say that them not communicating to Gabbie that she were to be killed off, to me, is just unprofessional. it would have made filming a lot better. like honestly, do you think Gabbie would have been as pissed if she knew she wasn't going to be there again?

and another thing-- if Gabbie acted SO horribly, why did they stay her friend? Collab on her channel? if Gabbie acted SO BADLY during SEASON TWO... why did they invite her back? and if Tana was an issue, why invite HER back? I'm very glad that tana had a better time during season 4, but the fact that they knew BOTH OF THEM were bad on set, yet invited them back? they're literally setting up every other person around them for a toxic work-place experience. I've said it once and it's my next point, too, its un. pro. fessional.

ignoring all of that. literally every single piece of information i've stated above. THERE ARE TWO SOLE REASONS I STAND WITH GABBIE.

1. Joey and Daniel, no matter how horrible Gabbie may have acted, had no right to play out Gabbie's voice memo's where she was expressing that she was EXTREMELY UPSET. that she was dealing with multiple things in her life. They had NO right. Trisha Paytas, of all people, has even heard that voice memo enough to MOCK, AND MAKE FUN OF GABBIE'S EATING DISORDER, PUBLICLY, MULTIPLE TIMES, REFERENCING THE VOICE MEMO. to have the people you WORKED FOR, DO THAT? how could anyone in their cast ever trust them again? who's to say you wont send them a genuinely confidential voice memo, and they STILL decide to share it with people?

2. BECAUSE GABBIE'S MENTAL HEALTH ISNT A CRUTCH, IT ISNT AN EXCUSE, AND IT SURE AS HELL ISNT A JOKE. Gabbie Hanna was on the brink of suicide, she was struggling with an eating disorder, had undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD, was dealing with immense c-ptsd, and it is ALL. FUCKING. VALID.

for YEARS. I've been told to stop using my Bipolar as a crutch. that i was in therapy for it, and that i needed to use coping mechanisms. i was later diagnosed with BPD-- and suddenly i didn't need to cope anymore. my anger was suddenly understandable. people finally believed me.

you DO NOT. HAVE TO HAVE. A FUCKING GOD DAMN PERSONALITY DISORDER TO BE FUCKING BELIEVED.

ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING?

my BPD WASN'T THE ISSUE.

IT WAS MY ADHD.

its literally wired into our brains, and WE. CANNOT. CONTROL. IT. the ONLY THING WE CAN DO, IS TREAT IT.

to continue to NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY ARE CLEARLY EXPRESSING THEIR LIMITS is the reason mental health is in its infancy today. we know when something is too much, and we know when our conditions are causing us to have outbursts, because its something we dont do EVERY SINGLE DAY. we need to realize that ALL. MENTAL. ILLNESSES. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

IS JUST AS IMPORTANT. JUST AS DIFFICULT. AND JUST AS UNIQUE, AS ANY OTHER MENTAL ILLNESS.

with the amount of genetical defects, the amount of nationalities that exist, the amount of co-morbidities, EVERY. SINGLE. THING. THAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT FROM YOU? you GENUINELY expect there to be a person in the world with the EXACT SAME THOUGHT PROCESS, exact same conditions, exact same life circumstances, as me? as Gabbie? as YOU?

there is a reason people with mental illness have a common symptom, no matter the condition. that symptom is the thought that no one in the world can possibly have the same thought process as you. its the symptom that i essentially expressed a paragraph before this one. and its because we realize that THERE ISNT. that it isnt a symptom, but a fact, to us. because you cant thing the way i can. my brain will only ever process the way MY. BRAIN. PROCESSES.

that. is why i stand by Gabbie.

____________________________________________

So, the new information about Bianca Devins? Alright, lets talk about it.

Kim Devins, Bianca's mom, has called for all drama channels to apologize to Gabbie Hanna for the way they treated her in regards to her commenting on Bianca's shirts.

I know you want me to say that it turns out Gabbie is actually manipulating the mother, and Gabbie actually WAS exploiting Bianca---

NO.

KIM DEVINS IS A GROWN WOMAN. KIM DEVINS HAS SAID PUBLICLY, ON HER OWN, PUBLIC TWITTER ACCOUNT, THAT GABBIE HANNA DESERVES AN APOLOGY. KIM DEVINS HAS STATED THAT EVERYTHING GABBIE HAS SAID WAS IN FACT-- THE TRUTH. TO SAY GABBIE IS LYING, IS TO SAY THE MOTHER IS LYING, AS THE MOTHER HAS NOT ONLY APPROVED OF, BUT ENDORSED THE VIDEO.

i know i linked this before everything, but if you haven't already, PLEASE. FUCKING. SIGN.

https://www.change.org/p/bianca-s-law-stop-the-spread-of-violent-and-graphic-images-on-the-internet

_____________________________________________

Yeah uhh..so first off, Gabbie never doxxed ANYONE. as someone who's had their literal home IP leaked-- you shouldn't just throw that term around lightly. its genuinely traumatic for people to be doxxed.

Gabbie did however, grab the IP of someone. she did this, because she was worried it was someone SHE FULLY KNEW, was a danger to minors.

Second off, this was talked about quite awhile ago, in april or may-- she actually did that WELL OVER a year ago. we only know because she talked about it on Marco Polo (an app where you can group video chat and text. it was a perk of one of the tiers of her patreon) and it was leaked recently. so i don't really get your point in that.

Gabbie only did that because of all the minor fans that people were SCREAMING for Gabbie to protect last summer. They blamed Gabbie for certain fans that were getting bullies by anti's, all because Gabbie herself didn't tell people not to. so OF FUCKING COURSE she is going to do anything she can to protect her fans if she FULLY KNOWS a PROPER P*DO is trying to imitate a fan account, and she thinks she found it.

When the IP didn't match with where she knew the gross ass guy lived, she completely discarded it. Honestly, if you're upset with this, you might at well be upset with THIS, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaJqBug10MQ

--------------------------------------------------------

ALL OF THIS TO SAY:

THIS IS A THOMAS SANDERS BLOG

PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT GABBIE HANNA.