#i had very very very definite obsessive compulsive tendencies

[herowithbadpublicity]

Who is Hal, really?

Like, we see so many different versions of him. We’re introduced to this awkward, neurotic, definitely not Mitchell, vampire in season 4. Oh cool, he has these friends he’s been with for years, that’s great!

Hal literally kept Leo chained up with the sole purpose to watch him kill people (and make money, as he mentions betting on the fight). This was actually in a prequel clip, not in the show - if you saw the clip, Hal and Leo’s relationship dynamic completely changes when we see them on screen together for the first time.

Throughout the show, Hal implores people to be his keeper, to watch him and make sure he doesn’t commit anymore sins. First Leo. In some ways, this is extremely cowardly - Hal puts the responsibility on others. If his inhibitions drop and he’s placed in just the right situation, he does awful things and can say “oh they didn’t watch me close enough”. I’m surprised Leo kept his promise - if I got free, the guy who initially kidnapped me would be getting these hands.

I really really like Hal and Annie’s dynamic. She is so opposite of him, and from the very beginning you see his discomfort. Then, when Kirby shows up, we get a scene where Hal wants to confess his sins. Part of it is because he would rather she hear it from him, but another part is something Hal does frequently - burden others with keeping him clean.

Who is Hal though? There are 3 parts of Hal. Of course there’s the awful part, that killed Cutler’s wife and who is 100% capable of becoming a genocidal dictator. Then there’s the part we see most of the time. Seemingly harmless vampire with obsessive compulsive tendencies, endearing in some way and obviously trying his best to stay out of trouble. But there’s this other part, that we only see a few times. It’s when the two overlap. There’s some glimpse of it with his prequel - he’s a “slavemaster” but he’s hesitant and ashamed, and wants to be someone else. We also know that this is the in between, as he references the cycles of bad and good Hal.

I think, living for over 500 years, Hal has had to develop a way to cope with everything he has done. There are old ones like Mr Snow who seem chill and totally fine with being menaces to society. But we SEE Hal is capable of acting without malice, of choosing to do things to keep others safe.

I propose then, that Hal, upon becoming a vampire and murdering people left and right, had at one point realized his psyche could not manage and be okay with it all. So, what better way to cope then to organize who you are. Hal is neurotic. He creates a line - bad Hal and kind Hal. It becomes black and white for him - he either goes full villain, or he is safe. He treats the bad part as another being, trying to separate his sins from who he is as a person. I suppose we can also see it as vampire Hal and Vampire Hal.

I struggle at times when trying to figure out who Hal is for real. Is this the true him, proper, neurotic, judgemental. How do these traits present in Vampire Hal. He dresses classy, he manipulates, and he harms. The judgement in this case leads to murder. Try to imagine Hal, the one awkwardly holding Eve, and when he turns Cutler. How can one man behave so contrastingly? The blood eases the anxiety and the pressure. Hal can let go, fall into habits. Without blood, he has to always be mindful.

So, other than being a story telling device; I see the Jekyll and Hyde aspect of him being a coping mechanism. He either fights the urges and the habits, vampire Hal who keeps a schedule, or, he goes full Vampire.

[andreal831]

Do you think Damon really loved Katherine? Could they have made it work if circumstances were different?

I definitely believe Damon loved Katherine. He even stated that she never compelled him. The biggest reason I believe it is because of the difference between Stefan and Damon after they turn.

Stefan hated Katherine after he turned and he saw through the compulsion. But Damon stayed obsessed with her for over 150 years. He knew who she was and was willing to become a vampire for her. When he thought she died, he was willing to die with her, leaving Stefan. Much like he was willing to desiccate for 60 years with Elena. Damon's issue is his love consumes him in a very unhealthy way.

Which is why I don't think they could really work in the long run.

While Katherine loved the attention, she didn't just want someone to follow her around like a puppy. She wanted someone who challenged her and pushed her, like Stefan and even Elijah did.

While I do think Damon in Season 2 was closer to this, he still had a tendency to get completely wrapped up in his love. To Katherine, that was suffocating. The way Damon completely fell off the rails when Katherine pretending to be Elena broke up with him. Katherine viewed that as pathetic. She had the chance to make it work with him when she took over Elena's life and she did everything to destroy him.

Damon also has a tendency to strip women of their autonomy, something Katherine wouldn't stand for. We see him do it with every woman he is intimate with. Katherine and Damon would have been fighting constantly. They could have had a hot, but very toxic whirlwind of a "romance" but it would fizzle out so quickly because neither of them could get control.

So, yes, Damon really loved Katherine, but she never really loved him.

Thanks for the ask!

[harteofthehart-ayyy]

//Most unexpected things you found out about Harte while writing him?

//Definitely not the type of answer you were looking for but when I was making a new Harte playlist I went back to look at his old one from late 2017 and there is just the most god awful weezer song on it. So I guess Harte listening to weezer is canon because it shocked me so much and I think he would if only for the bit. (Unexpected because Weezer is not his style at all lmao)

Different answer, I guess this wasn’t as unexpected, but there was a moment when something clicked and I realized Harte very obviously has OCD and it comes in waves with him. Like yeah he absolutely does have obsessive compulsive tendencies. And looking back through the Amino rp, he’s always had them. I just found that really interesting.

[justonemorechapternicercy]

Because my beloved @unbeknownstunknown was complaining about the lack of Tristercy 💙

It all started with the Hephaestus and the Athena cabins working together to invent the demigod proof technology to be able to connect with each other and their mortal acquaintances. Or maybe it started with Percy getting better friends with Piper, both of them being fed up with other people's expectations about their lives, about not being able to explore their own sexuality because others wanted them to be in a relationship with the "obvious choice".

Wait, no. It started with little Percy having a little thing for a certain Hollywood heartthrob he saw in a trashy soap opera when the neighbor lady was babysitting him.

Anyways, it started somehow, with the mixture of little things that built up into this moment.

This moment being Percy, drunk and petty, lounging with Piper around the McLean's pool, bitching about compulsive heteronormativity.

Dangerous combination, especially with Percy's tendency to listen to his impulsive thoughts, and Piper's inherited curiosity towards unusual pairings. (And by curiosity, Percy obviously meant obsession. As much as Piper liked to deny it, she was their mother's child through and through. Maybe not from the outside, but her personality definitely reflected on some aspects of Aphrodite.)

"You wouldn't dare to do it," Piper declared, taking a generous sip of her purple cocktail, leaning back onto the sunbed. The look Percy gave them was one that other people would have found disturbing, but Piper just smiled prettily, dipping his big toe into the cooling pool water. As much as the native American demigod liked to deny, they were disturbingly similar to Drew Tanaka. Only one of them was better at hiding their cruel side, and one of them was proud of it.

"Famous last words," Percy muttered, but then smirked. "So, what's the bet?"

Piper snorted, "There's no bet. You will do it, and I will enjoy the fallout."

"Valid," Percy nodded, unlocking his phone. He was feeling mischievous, petty, and yes, horny.

He hated that everybody thought that just because Piper and him were friends, and heterosexuals thought there was no such thing as a boy-girl friendship, the media had been speculating about their possible marriage ever since he first visited them.

He was not in love with Piper, thank you very much. No.

His sight was on another McLean.

Piper knew about this, and found it hilarious. Especially because of the conspiracy theories that were spreading through the tweets and TikTok videos that he, as a wrongly accused teenage terrorist, why would want to marry into a movie star's family. Most of them thought it was his way to clear up his reputation before trying to become an internationally famous actor himself.

He was actually quite ashamed of the internet. He heard that people were horny on the internet, with dirty, dirty minds, but nobody tweeted about him being Tristan's boytoy. Shame.

He would have to rectify it.

🌊 @ iblamethegods

replying to @ queenofthedamned

He obviously wants to fuck the dad

It was quite funny how quickly his tweet was retweeted. Some called him disgusting. Some agreed. Nature was healing.

Missy💀 @ queenofthedead

replying to @ iblamethegods

You disgusting freak! That's basically a child!

Prudence R. @ prupru

replying to @ iblamethegods

You might be onto something! #tristercy

Kathy Kat😻 @ tristanisadaddy

replying to @ iblamethegods @ prupru

OMG! That's so hot! #tristercy

Rach @ idareyou

replying to @ iblamethegods @ queenofthedamned

I agree… that idiot is certainly a child 🙄

Rach @ idareyou

replying to @ iblamethegods

The boy definitely wants to fuck the dad

Outside of the slight feeling of humiliation and humor of being called out by Rachel, he didn't think much of what would happen after he posted it - already was on his way to close it, not wanting to bother by the fall out -, when he saw something that made him glad he wasn't currently drinking.

TM @ lovernotfighter

replying to @ iblamethegods

What if the dad wants to fuck him too?

#tristercy

The icon was a picture of a familiar painting. A painting he had been staring at for the last two weeks, during each meal. TM was a follower of Piper (Feathers @stopstereotypes). Percy could admit that sometimes he missed the obvious, but-

"Subtle, dad, subtle," Piper laughed, more than a little tipsy.

-but he wasn't that oblivious.

It wasn't a joke, was it? He did caught Tristan looking at certain parts of him for longer than polite. And he hinted that he was quite lonely nowadays. And that he was bisexual. And that there was a reason why he had a daughter from the literal Goddess of Love.

Well…

🌊

What if the boy wanted to go inside?

He sent the DM, part of him still not expecting an answer, but it arrived almost immediately as if Tristan was waiting for his reaction.

TM

The dad would be waiting

Percy swallowed. Peeking from behind his phone, his eyes met with Piper's mirthful eyes.

"What?" He demanded defensively.

"Nothing," Piper smirked. It was a terrifying look on them. She looked exactly like Drew. "Can I be your maid of honor, stepmom?" She cackled finally.

Percy pouted, secretly happy that she wasn't jealous or resentful because of his crush on their father, but they shouldn't make fun of him. Placing his body weight on his arms, he pushed himself up.

"Well, my darling stepdaughter, I'm going to bed now-"

She look confused.

He smirked. "Have to make sure you get half siblings from your dad's side too!"

Piper's eyes widened, and before he could prepare to avoid being used as a bullseye, a stray flip-flop hit in his chest. "Fuck off, Jackson!" They yelled, wheezing.

Percy couldn't stop himself. "That's Jackson-McLean for you, Ms!" Then ran. He had other things to do that night than annoying the hell out of his future stepdaughter. He would have a lot of time to do that after the wedding.

"Oh? Jackson-McLean, you say?" A deep voice purred as he walked into the mansion. He wasn't startled when the gorgeous man stepped out of the shadows that were leading towards his bedroom, but his heart definitely speed up more than he ever experienced before outside of a dangerous situation.

Well… it was a dangerous situation in some way; he felt like a prey animal as the older man prowled towards him.

He couldn't wait to be eaten alive.

[okcomputeroknotok19972017]

to start, i know that psychiatric diagnoses are not exact -- they're our best label for treating clusters of symptoms that tend to go together, but the borders get very fuzzy and they mesh and meld together and every person's experience and exact combination of neuroses is different. listing out all of the potential mental illnesses and developmental differences i have been variously diagnosed with makes me sound ridiculous to many people, like i'm collecting labels for the fun of it: major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, inattentive ADHD, autism, possibly bipolar ... it all really comes down to being a generally neurotic and obsessive person, prone to bouts of suicidal depression and social isolation. i just call myself an eccentric.

psychiatry is strange. i was evaluated for ADHD but my case was 'subclinical' because i wasn't struggling enough academically at the very moment i was evaluated. i'm personally not interested in being evaluated for autism because as likely as it may be, i don't have a comorbid intellectual or cognitive disability that impairs my functioning and being treated for my other mental health issues would probably do more for my social difficulties than anything else. i know i'll never stop having circumscribed interests or feeling fundamentally different from other people, but when i don't feel so sad i get along better. i sometimes explain to people that i'm very likely autistic and they forgive/stop making fun of some of my strange tendencies, but that's about as far as that label takes me. i definitely have OCD and that's one label that i find extremely fitting. my therapist and i have talked extensively about it and done some acceptance therapy, i wasn't ever clinically evaluated but she was the first one to bring it up as a very obvious struggle of mine and understanding myself as obsessive-compulsive has helped me a lot.

i wouldn't normally be so worried about untangling the differences between three very similar mental illnesses given the fuzzy boundaries, but the question of if i have bipolar disorder has really been nagging at me -- mostly because my symptoms make me want to kill myself. bipolar disorder runs in my family and i've been questioning for about two years now if i've got bipolar ii or cyclothymia or if my frequent depressive episodes are just being exacerbated by my OCD and that neuroticism and urgent panic is similar to what would be known as hypomania. getting this figured out matters to me because finding the right combination of therapy and medication that is usually used to treat these symptoms would really help me. i'll say that lamotrigine/lamictal, commonly prescribed for bipolar patients, has been the single most helpful medication i've ever been on. if i weren't on it, i would be a wreck.

hmm. i'm not asking any commenters to armchair diagnose me, i guess i'm just thinking out loud. i'm not really sure how to broach the topic of bipolar with my psych or my therapist without setting off "google doctor" alarm bells ... and i have to admit, i'm worried that people will look at me differently with that label attached. i'm used to my OCD being misunderstood and stigmatized but people usually have a better understanding of it after i explain what it's really like, but bipolar is extremely stigmatized. i'll see it listed as a severe mental illness (and i suppose it is, but i still get that defense "hey! you don't know what it's like!" sort of reaction to it), most people are scared of it or hateful towards it, and i guess there's a kernel of truth to it somewhere. my grandmother had a pretty acute case. she was a very complicated person, and she really hurt some people. lithium helped her. it helped my mom's major depression, too. i'm scared that i am going to hurt people. sometimes i feel so angry that i want to hit something, i want to make someone else feel as bad as i do, sometimes i feel so desperately lonely and terrified that i cling onto people like they're the only thing keeping me afloat. ultimately i'm far too nervous and passive to do much of anything and i'm very good at holding in my most extreme emotions, but i fear it leeches out of me. i break everything i touch. i don't want to break people.

i look up things like "bipolar celebrities" to make myself feel better and like there is hope, and all the lists are the same: this person killed themself, this person killed themself, this person did something awful and lives in disgrace, this person killed themself, this person killed themself, this person killed themself ... so far it's not done much to soothe my nerves. i guess carrie fisher did alright for herself though, yea?

... i don't want to be my grandmother. i don't want my neuroticism and irrational emotions to be taken out on the people i love, taken out on anyone, really. world's longest sigh. i'll get shit figured out eventually. my recently upped dosage of lamotrigine should keep me afloat for a while. i'm gonna play minecraft now

[babygorewhore]

Not sure if you are still doing the ships (if not, sorry for the ask), but I couldn’t resist submitting a request just in case. 💕

Physical appearance: 5’6” with shoulder-length light brown hair, blue-grey eyes and pale skin. Underweight but on the healthy side (if that makes sense?). I tend to wear very feminine clothes: pastels in greens, pinks, purples and blues and nice oversized woollen cardigans during the winter. I also love thrifting, and I have a collection of vintage dresses hanging up on the walls of my room (that hopefully I will wear out one day, where to? No idea.) and a collection of pretty babydoll shirts. Minimal make-up is usually my preference; I love blush on the heights of my cheeks and nose, subtle sparkles on my eyes, mascara, lip products, and often a subtle liner that I draw on the corners of my eyes using a dark brown eyeshadow (I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s cute and reminds me of the pretty bambi-eyed girls)

Personality type: I am an INTJ; however, I am not shy in school (out in public, though, I tend to feel awkward) and often try and befriend the ‘quiet’ people because I am interested in getting to know their interests, etc. I am constantly stressing, and sometimes find it hard to get out bed as I have low energy levels and diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder - usually focused on religious fears, self-targeting violent compulsions, and controlling tendencies (for example. I had anorexia as a child and was obsessed with the exact number of my calorie intake). I definitely prefer staying in the warmth of my house or going on car trips to the beach during summer (I love the summer season).

I enjoy horror/gore films, and gothic novels with themes of impending doom, innocence, girlhood, fate etc. such as the Virgin Suicides ( a great book ). I am quite boring, in all honesty, and so I cannot think of much more to describe myself. I tend to live in my own head, my best friend describes my state as ‘transcending to a fourth dimension’ because at times I truely do attempt to escape reality and often recline back into thought.

Anyways, thanks for reading. No pressure to respond, but it was fun writing to you anyways !! 💕💕

WE HAVE THE SAME PERSONALITY TYPE OMG

He would think you’re the prettiest thing in the world. He would think a feminine style is so pretty. Like a bird he’s seen in a book.

He’s naturally more of a autumn guy, but I think you could get him warmed up to the summer, I feel like he would be drawn to that personality type absolutely

He would help you stay calmer, he has a protective side to him so you would be his absolute world. He would adore you and always want you to feel okay talking to him whatever you’re struggling with.

BUT YEAH!! You and Tate Langdon!!!

[zapsoda]

i got prescribed my antidepressants specifically for depression but now that i think about it. it like. definitely helped in other ways. like i used to have a lot of very obsessive compulsive tendencies. shit like id have a lot of nasty intrusive thoughts and id have to check locks or the time over and over again even though i knew what time it was and i knew that i locked the door or the gate but i still Had to do it. over and over. and this has like. just about entirely stopped since my mood has mostly stabilized on the meds.

whats funny is. before it stopped i tried talking to my therapist about it and she was like. well how about you gradually try to start doing those things less and less (specifically with checking locks). and i was like okay i think thats a reasonable step its a good idea. i think that makes sense. but i explained that it worried me. because of the anxiety that fueled me doing it in the first place. what if the one time i dont go back and check it however many times it actually isnt locked and something terrible happens. and she got fucking mad at me! she was like well i cant fucking help you if you dont want to be helped. like jesus lady i was just talking i thought this was a safe space!

[neuroticdragon]

I am hella tired but I gotta talk about how Gamergate indirectly caused one of my longtime friendships to end. I'll post under a cut because of mentions of suicide.

Someone in one of the Discord servers I frequent posted a six hour video about Gamergate. I am currently 4.5 hours into it. (Literally just had my phone playing as I played a lot of Cult of the Lamb.)

I realized in a very roundabout way, Gamergate ended one of my friendships.

I mean there was a lot more to it than that. I had been miserable in the friendship for YEARS at that point, but it did play a small part.

So uh... Long story short, years after Gamergate, Zoe Quinn came out with allegations against Alec Holowka about an abusive relationship which ended in a successful suicide attempt from Holowka.

As a frequent user of the internet, of course I knew who Zoe Quinn was. I was aware they were falsely accused of sleeping with a game journalist to get a good review of their game. I was also aware a lot of the narrative about them was largely false. The entire well had been poisoned by bad faith actors.

I, as a victim of abuse myself, had sympathy for Quinn.

My now ex friend posted a video on my private (now deleted) Twitter account about how Quinn HAD to have been lying because Don't You Know About Gamergate.

Basically the video made the argument that because Quinn was a "compulsive liar" therefore this accusation had to be false. Which... is not how you make an argument. Admittedly I didn't finish the video because it made me so viscerally angry and I was disgusted my friend was listening to such vile nonsense.

It was an extremely mask off moment for my friend. Suddenly a lot of his weird idiosyncrasies about women and relationships came into light. I don't want to say he was a full on incel but he did have many of the same tendencies.

I still don't know whether or not Zoe Quinn was lying about the accusations and I doubt we ever will learn, but shortly after Holowka's suicide, one of the (male) developers on Night in the Woods also came out with his own accusations about Holowka and his abuse while working under him that matched a lot of Quinn's story. I at least felt somewhat vindicated that I had taken the "right" side.

Oh and then of course the fact that Holowka's sister said she believed Quinn should have been enough.

But you know, that's what happens when your internet diet is heavily focused on trolling, you're inevitably going to fall down some nasty rabbit holes. And my friend was definitely falling down some nasty rabbit holes. It wasn't anything you noticed immediately, but get him talking enough, and eventually you realize who he really was deep down.

I snuck onto my now ex-friend's Twitter after I blocked him and he was asking if anyone knew whether or not they knew the Quinn allegations were true. I guess to show that I had blocked him "for no reason" which... Was not the only reason I cut him off but that's not something I want to get into here.

But even if the Quinn allegations were proven false beyond a shadow of a doubt, the fact that he's listening to folks whose entire goal is to destroy the life of one person is enough to make me not want to associate with him. I already knew about how weirdly obsessed he was with Ken Penders.

Anyway, it's whatever. Just thought it was interesting that Gamergate indirectly ended one of my friendships.

I'm going to sleep.

[cosmicjoke]

Levi and OCD ask anon here! Thank you for answering! :)

Regarding your story, I’m an absolute sucker for angst, so add as much of it to your stories as your heart desires, hahaha. I don’t know why I love reading about my favorite characters suffering so much, but I do. The more I love them, the more angst and hurt/comfort I desire. I’m very much enjoying your story, and I respect your writing so much! You do so much justice to Levi’s character and all the hardships he’s battled.

Personally, I do sort of headcanon Levi as having OCD, but I think he’s able to sort of compartmentalize that aspect of himself for when he and everyone around him are in safer situations. And, of course, there are good days and bad days with it. I say that as I’ve struggled with something similar (anorexia with strong contamination OCD tendencies), and for example, with things like birthday celebrations for others, I’m able to sort of reel my issues in and act normal to avoid ruining the event or burdening others. As soon as it’s just me, though, the issues come back. I see Levi as someone similar in the sense that he’d feel awful having his mental health issues affect others’ lives and well-being, and due to his immense care for others, is somehow able to keep his compulsions in check. Unfortunately, he doesn’t extend that same consideration toward himself. I also see it as something that he’s perhaps able to contain in his mind as long as he’s focused strongly on a goal or task, but it’s those moments where there’s not much else to do but think and reflect, where he might struggle the most with OCD symptoms.

Of course, I do agree with you that there’s no evidence of this explicitly in canon, but something about the way Levi talks about filth and the feeling of it on him and the way he grew up in the Underground just seems to line up well with OCD and using it as a coping mechanism. Sometimes I kind of wonder whether that’s something Isayama had in mind when writing that in as one of Levi’s personality characteristics, but given that that’s not related to the ultimate themes of the show, he chose not to focus on it and just let readers form their own conclusions. I think it’s somewhat similar to how Reiner seems to suffer from a dissociative disorder, even though Isayama doesn’t go super into depth with it.

I love talking about this with others, so thanks so much for answering my ask ^_^ If you have any additional thoughts, I’d love to hear them, but don’t feel pressured at all to do so.

Thank you so much again, truly. That really means a lot to me!

You make some really great points about how it is possible that Levi suffers from OCD. It would be right in line with his personality to hide any sort of mental health issues from others, similar to how he tends to hide his emotions in general. Levi rarely lets it show, how things are actually affecting him, but of course we know he IS greatly affected. There's small moments which starkly reveal his true feelings all throughout the story, subtle expressions and things he says and actions he takes which tell the audience just how deeply he cares about the people around him, even as he maintains a stoic facade. A good example of that, I think, is when Kenny kills Nifa. It's just for a split second that we see Levi's expression when he looks over at her, and there's such a look of extreme anguish on his face, that you know he's devastated by her death. But he wipes the expression away a moment late and launches into action against Kenny and his squad, pushing his devastation aside because there's no time to indulge in it, not if he wants to stay alive himself. So I can definitely envision a scenario like the one you've laid out, in which Levi does suffer from certain mental problems, but he just does a good job of keeping it under wraps as a means of not burdening others, and keeping himself in control and focused on his duties.

Levi's obsession with cleanliness can certainly be seen as a manifestation of a deeper, psychological issue. You make a great point too when bringing up the way Levi speaks about the filth of the Underground, and his desire to get away from that. No doubt, growing up in that kind of extreme poverty and squalor left a deep impression on him, and I absolutely think his need to be clean and to keep his environment clean is rooted in that. I think it's possible also that Levi is a germaphobe, specifically because of how his mother died. She became sick, so I think Levi is probably hyper-vigilant when it comes to disease, and his need for cleanliness seems likely to be rooted in that as well. A fear of illness.

Whether Levi suffers from the need to engage in repeated actions and patterns of behavior, that would be more speculative, but again, it's possible that it's there, and as you said, he just has learned to keep it under control when in the company of others.

[sugar-and-spite]

hey i hope this isnt weird with me being a total stranger but i saw your post in the tag about ocd + adhd and not knowing if that’s a Thing and i just thought i would send you my two cents, since ocd + adhd is apparently exactly what i have! in my case i got diagnosed w/ ocd first and then adhd (inattentive type) a year later. i know chances of misdiagnoses are very high from what i have read and talks ive had with both my ocd and adhd specialists, particularly misdiagnosing ocd as hyperactive adhd. but i really can tell you that i definitely definitely have both. i can read about either one, about the unique symptoms/experiences with technically no overlap, and just go “exactly exactly exactly” every line. adhd meds work wonders for helping me feel grounded and focused but does nothing to control my compulsions, while ocd therapy has been so effective for overcoming some of my obsessions but does nothing to mitigate hyperfixations, etc. it feels like i kind of have otherwise textbook cases of both, except for the fact that i just happen to have them together (ain’t life fun)

speaking completely from my own experiences, i will say my adhd tendencies and my ocd tendencies usually feel pretty separate. i would describe it spending most of the day dealing with adhd stuff with ocd moments peppered in lol. but i feel they do interact in some ways. certainly my adhd makes my worst ocd compulsions more difficult to deal with because it can overlap with bouts of hyperfocus that makes it VERY hard to stop. my adhd also makes erp therapy plans (i.e. exposure-response prevention, standard ocd treatment) harder to stick to consistently due to executive dysfunction, plus my weird rotation of more minor ocd obsessions and compulsions that come and go at varying levels of intensity almost like hyperfixations. my ocd in turn affects my adhd hyperfixations by making my engagement with them a bit compulsive at times. basically it feels like adhd and ocd are two little guys in my brain pointing at each other saying “i can make them worse” lol

obviously i cant diagnose you over a tumblr ask or at all nsgshshs im not a professional myself or anything, i also don’t know if this will even sound relatable because adhd can present soo differently and ocd can entail so many different kinds of obsessions and compulsions but i thought it might help to share my experience at least in case it’s at all helpful. good luck and stay well out there!

thank you so much for this!! honestly hearing from other people has been the most helpful thing for me with this, my brain has been trying to convince me that i can't possibly have these issues, and it's harder for that to make sense when i hear so many people saying they deal with the same stuff lol

i totally understand what you're saying abt them making each other worse - i feel like some of my obsessions have stemmed from forgetting things due to adhd, and then overcompensating and becoming obsessive over not forgetting. i also have BFRBs (body focused repetitive behaviors - skin picking in my case, but hair pulling is also common) and i've read that those are common with both adhd and ocd. i was on stimulants for a while for my adhd and fatigue, and while they helped those issues immensely, they didn't really help the picking at all, so i wonder if that's because stimulants don't usually help ocd?

anyway, this isn't weird at all and i really appreciate hearing other people's perspectives 💖 it makes me feel like i'm less alone in my brainweirdness!

[vigilantejustice]

sometimes i think there’s definitely something like. diagnosably wrong with my personality + the more i examine my childhood the more i’m convinced there’s an explanation.

got gifted a guidebook for the sims that had a SUPER detailed multi-generational tutorial playthrough which was just a cool way to highlight all the fun new mechanics of the game but kid me followed this tutorial with complete unwavering rigidity every time and felt like i was somehow playing the sims (a game with literally no rules) wrong or that it didn’t count if i didn’t follow the guide letter for letter what kind of...

[deadtired03]

💜🃏Jeremiah Valeska Headcanons 🔪💣 (ft. Jerome):

1. Before he was abused and before Jeremiah left, Jerome was a normal kid. He took risks, loved jokes, and enjoyed pulling pranks, but he wasn’t “crazy.” Jeremiah, on the other hand, was considered a very strange kid. Because Jerome was wild, Jeremiah liked to act as though he was the “sane” twin. In reality, Jeremiah would do or say a lot of weird things that didn’t make sense to anyone but himself.

2. He’s a compulsive liar and often makes up a lot of things about himself (which only slightly got better as he grew up).

3. He has an eery and unnatural fearlessness (though he tries not to be too reckless) and would often have to fake his fear in order to seem more normal in the eyes of others. He also has a freakishly high pain tolerance, which would often secretly baffle Jerome as a kid.

4. As a kid, one of Jeremiah’s favorite hobbies was dissecting stray animals (mostly alley cats) out of “curiosity” and then blaming it on Jerome (in the future, after killing his mother, Jerome’s memories blurred together and he genuinely believed he was the one responsible for all the dead animals when he was a kid).

5. He’s always had odd responses and reactions (such as the time his mother freaked out over a spider and Jeremiah’s immediate reaction was to hide it instead of getting rid of it).

6. One strange tendency he’s always had, which always embarrassed him as a kid, was letting out random, short bursts of laughter or giggling (which he learned to control as he grew older).

7. Ever since he was a kid, he’s had a habit of arguing with himself, out loud, when he’s trying to make a decision (this would earn him a lot of weird looks from the other circus folk).

8. After leaving the circus, he was bullied in school for being “weird”, causing him to attempt to suppress his strange behaviors. All his progress came undone after being sprayed by Jerome’s insanity gas.

9. After being sprayed with the insanity gas he started hearing multiple voices in his head, three of them being Jerome, Lila, and Zack.

10. He’s really good with makeup and often tried on Lila’s makeup as a kid, which Jerome secretly knew about.

11. He’s an extreme pyromaniac and secretly loved setting things on fire when he was a kid, once almost setting the trailer on fire (y’know, for science). His obsession with fire, however, eventually evolved into an obsession with bombs and explosions.

12. After being sprayed with the insanity gas, he adopted two pet hyenas for Ecco on her birthday (one is named Bruce while the other is named Lila). After killing Ecco, Jeremiah took care of the hyenas until they were later given to Harley Quinn.

13. Similar to his mother, he has a slight addiction to alcohol and usually drinks whenever he’s stressed/paranoid, sad, or disappointed.

14. He’s always loved a good show and was definitely interested in theater. However, I think he refused to indulge in those interests/desires in fear they’d make him seem similar to Jerome.

15. While sleeping, post-spray!Jeremiah sometimes speaks complete nonsense, says incredibly disturbing things, or just giggles (I feel like Ecco would somehow know about this and record him without telling him).

16. While Jerome’s canon favorite ice cream flavor is chunky monkey, Jeremiah’s favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip (I also like to headcanon that Jerome would make fun of him for liking ice cream that, in his opinion, tastes like toothpaste).

17. After being adopted, he was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder, insomnia, and OCD. After being sprayed with the insanity gas, he developed psychosis and depersonalization disorder.

18. He’s definitely a cat person, which he probably tries to hide. He’s the type of person to be strongly against getting a cat but ends up being the one most attached to it/also probably hates dogs, especially big ones. However, he still has no qualms with killing cats as long as they’re feral.

19. He’s agender (AMAB) and goes by any pronouns (I think, especially after being sprayed with the insanity gas, he’d be completely apathetic to the concept of gender and just wouldn’t care).

20. He’s bisexual with no preference (pre-spray!Jeremiah had a crush on Ecco and post-spray!Jeremiah developed a crush on Bruce).

21. He once sent a chocolate cake to the Wayne mansion on Bruce’s birthday and said it was from Gordon, but when Alfred cut into it it was just lasagna shaped like a cake and covered in chocolate frosting.

22. Due to years of drawing out his plans for engineering and designing mazes, he’s actually pretty good at drawing and enjoys sketching weird things when he has nothing else to do (which is rare as the Joker).

23. I feel like he’d be really into 1920s jazz music and electric-swing and would dance to it with Ecco (I headcanon his favorite song to be Let’s Misbehave by Irving Aaronson).

24. He never actually needed glasses, he just wore them to look “smarter” and to differentiate himself from Jerome.

25. I feel like his adoptive parents would’ve made him learn an instrument (specifically piano) throughout middle school and high school (probably far-fetched).

26. Puns make him unnaturally and unreasonably angry, so of course Jerome would make them all the time when they were kids (he considers puns to be an insult to actual jokes). He also probably fell for a lot of Deez Nuts jokes, courtesy of, surprisingly, Ecco.

27. Jeremiah = Mad Hatter

Jerome = Cheshire Cat

Bruce = Alice

28. His and Jerome’s birthday is April 1 (April Fool’s Day).

29. He’s extremely unpredictable after being sprayed with the insanity gas, which adds to his chaotic behavior. Some days he’ll commit crimes such as murder or blowing up a hospital, other days he’ll pull weird, elaborate pranks (usually on the GCPD or Bruce/Batman).

30. He’s the only one besides Alfred who knows that Bruce is Batman.

31. Really bad at and hates video games (except The Sims/probably made a Sim of himself and Bruce).

32. (⚠️Trigger Warning⚠️) Was probably sexually abused by his uncle without Jerome’s knowledge (otherwise Jerome would’ve killed Zack a lot sooner) and was a big part of the reason why he lied in order to leave.

33. I can see him being interested in learning different languages to expand his knowledge, mainly Spanish, French, Russian, and German.

34. Definitely born the younger twin, but became the older twin after Jerome died for a year and thus stopped aging.

35. For some reason I feel like he’d really like horses and would probably show up at Bruce’s mansion with a black horse wearing a tutu and a clown wig as a present or something.

36. Ecco sometimes catches him talking to animals or inanimate objects like he’s having an actual two-way conversation.

37. He learned how to wield a knife and use basic hand-to-hand combat from Ecco. However, he mostly relies on tricks to beat an opponent.

38. If he were an animal he’d be a purple poison dart frog (or a peacock lmao). Jerome would obviously be a hyena and Ecco would be a cat (guess what Bruce would be).

39. Constantly tells jokes and pulls pranks in a desperate attempt to make Bruce/Batman laugh (which of course only Harley manages to accomplish).

40. All of his weapons are custom made and have a clown/circus theme. He also has fake guns that just shoot out red flags saying “BANG!”

41. He hates bad manners/etiquette and tries to seem as proper as he can while at the same time acting like a clown. He’s a weird mix between polite and psychopath.

42. Absolutely despises being or getting dirty. Even just the thought of being covered in any form of filth makes his skin crawl.

43. I genuinely think that the only thing the insanity gas did to him was amplify his already existing thoughts and behavior and take away all of his impulse control.

44. As a kid he would manipulate Jerome into doing whatever he wanted, which mainly consisted of stealing things for him (I firmly believe Jerome was stealing Zack’s snickerdoodle cookies for Jeremiah).

45. Besides changing color (after the gas), Jeremiah’s eyes can also see extremely well in the dark.

46. If I were to give him a theme song it’d probably be Mama’s Gun by Glass Animals. I just think it fits the whole going insane vibe.

47. Jerome is against killing or hurting babies and children, but Jeremiah won’t hesitate to get rid of anything in his way (except Bruce).

48. Refuses to swear and instead says the weirdest things as a substitute (Ecco tries so hard to deal with it).

49. Actually likes snakes and got along well with them like his mother. He was definitely Sheba’s favorite and was the only one she tolerated besides Lila.

Note: I’ll probably add onto this if I think of any more. Also, feel free to let me know what you think.

[khaleesiofalicante]

Hello dear. Hope you are doing alright. I have a question about Jace. Do you think he has any psychological issues? Like depression, OCD, anxiety, suicidal tendencies...

If so, you could you explain as much possible why do you think that is? (With books references and all of that)

Thank you and take care.

—V

JACE AND MENTAL HEALTH

Just going to preface this with the fact that none of the below is an official diagnosis. They are simply my thoughts.

In essence, considering what he has been through before, during and after the events of The Mortal Instruments, I do think Jace has psychological issues.

Intrusive thoughts and OCD

As we know, Jace does have an obsessive need to keep his belongings always organized and his room/environment clean.

Compulsive cleaning and arranging is often characterized as a symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and it is often reinforced by intrusive thoughts and a need for symmetry and balance.

While it is possible that Jace has OCD – at least in a mild sense – I think it is more of a coping mechanism. Jace grew up in a household where he had little to no control over his life. It is very normal for children with no autonomy to take control in whatever form they can get. I think this might have contributed to his need to keep an organized and clean environment around him. I think brought him some sort of comfort at the time, to be able to control his surrounding.

I also think Valentine may have directly influenced it too. He did raise Jace like a soldier and he might have expected Jace to have the discipline and orderliness of a soldier too. I think can see him punishing Jace for being a messy child – which may have even reinforced Jace’s’ need for cleanliness and organization.

Trauma and PTSD

Similar to most shadowhunters, Jace definitely suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. I think it’s a relatively common condition among shadowhunters – especially since it is not addressed or treated.

I think his ptsd definitely got triggered after his resurrection at the end of City of Glass. We know he had nightmares over what happened while he was possessed by Sebastian. He distanced himself from his loved ones as a result too.

One example that I remember clearly is when he killed an Iron Sister while being under Sebastian’s influence. He has recurring nightmares about it and this particular scene even shows his desperate need for an anchor (Clary) to make sure he didn’t drown in the trauma.

Nightmares and Insomnia

While it has been hinted that Jace had nightmares since he was a child (he was raised by Valentine - so hardly surprising), we do see these nightmares returning during the events of TMI. And it’s also hinted that his nightmares are extremely stressful and severe - often because it was involved violence and death. 

Since TMI, it is also hinted that he has trouble sleeping (something many shadowhunters share I suppose). It got particularly worse during City of Fallen Angels, when he had awful nightmares and therefore actively prevented himself from sleeping and became extremely tired and exhausted as a result. 

Current State

I do think it is much better now. But we do see him struggling again when he is dealing with something stressful. For example, when he is worried about being the Head of the Institute in The Lost Book of the White:

In conclusion, I think he is doing much better now. For one, he has an incredible helpful support system. And he is also aware of his issues and is actively working on himself. Also, Valentine and Sebastian are dead and no longer bothering him. That helps a lot too lol.

I do think most of his psychological issues can broadly be characterized as anxiety disorders, which is concerning since Jace is often depicted and interpreted as a character who is brave, fearless and confident. So, it can be more difficult for him to recognize his fears and anxieties and to seek help for them.

But I am glad he is okay now.

[yttdch3]

Please evaluate on OCD Sou evidence I’m so here for it

i stalled this ask for a while with the intent to put something very concise together but my motivation’s been low so i’m gonna have to free-form it, sorry anon i also want to note that i am a person with OCD, so a lot of this is personal to me - I’m not just some rando being like “haha sou wash his hands so he has ocd” bc I’ve def seen that stuff and, I’m not gonna get into how exhausting that is rn y’know

Anyway what originally got me thinking abt this and what’s probably the biggest piece of evidence is what kanna says about him during the second main game: 

Kanna：

"Sou had been fretting about it since yesterday."

"He was going "I don't know the password!", taking his beanie off and putting it on..."

"Suddenly, I looked at Sou's hands, and was struck by how clean he kept them even in these circumstances..."

What Kanna is describing here is kind of on the dot OCD tendencies. He’s been dwelling on it for an excessive amount of time and he’s exhibiting repetitive compulsory behavior in response. Then she goes on to mention his hands were clean enough for it to be noticeable, and I think that could point to him experiencing compulsive hand washing as well. I think it’s also notable that it was Kanna who said this. There’s this sort of embarrassment and guilt that typically comes with experiencing OCD symptoms, and the more uncomfortable the situation you’re in is, the more you feel like you HAVE to hide what you’re experiencing. It makes sense that Kanna would be the one to see the most prominent symptoms in Sou, because he’s a lot more comfortable around her.

Sou is also very obviously touch averse, and I think that paired with the fact that he could be compulsively washing makes a pretty good case for it being due to some kind of obsessive fear.  In the island game he’s pretty blatant about it, when Mishima grabs his arm he immediately freaks out and tells him not to do that. Additionally, if you get his ending he says, "...Oh, but no hugs, please. that's not my thing". It’s a little more subtle in the main storyline, but he’s going to be hiding a lot more in this situation so it kinda makes sense. Sara can shake his hand, and she can high-five him, and in both instances he has really sudden changes in composure. I don’t consider Sara’s narration to be entirely accurate, so I think what happened during the handshake was something along the lines of Sara seeing just a moment of Sou’s discomfort with touching somebody showing through, and her not really knowing what to make of it, so (being in a scary situation herself) she assumed it was something scary. The game reflected that with the “scary face” cg because it’s her point of view. When she high-fives him he just calls her weird which is pretty silly but it definitely indicates discomfort.

There’ also like, SO much in the nightmare he has at the beginning of ch2pt2 and the sequences with shadow sou. Admittedly I’m pretty tired after writing all that so I’m gonna glaze over this for now and hopefully elaborate some other time, but these sections really feel like he’s experiencing like, a cycle of obsessing over past and possible future events, and repetitive intrusive thought. Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[devilsskettle]

(^^^ from howling (and bleeding) at the moon: menstruation, monstrosity and the double in the ginger snaps werewolf trilogy by erin m. flaherty) 

tw for discussion of suicide ideation

okay. so. i agree with the “doppelgänger narrative” idea but the idea that brigitte “[comes] to stand for the symbolic order she resists so enthusiastically at the start of the film” is, in my reading of the ending, a misinterpretation of what ginger’s “monstrosity” signifies in the film. flaherty’s reading follows a common structure of creature features in which the monstrous transgresses social norms, so the overarching conflict is the “other” vs. normalcy. in that case, killing the monster at the end is a return to normal and reinforces societal expectations. however, i don’t think that ginger snaps is actually that kind of story. at the beginning, both ginger and brigitte “resist so enthusiastically” being part of society to the point of rejecting life, becoming isolated and codependent. before ginger gets her period, brigitte tells her that she better not become basic like all the other kids at their school, but she leaves her behind pretty quickly once she becomes interested in teen society sex drugs and rock n roll and is more accepted by her peers. brigitte continues not to give a fuck about what anyone thinks of her, even though ginger is part of that world now and not their own. part of ginger’s transformation actually helps her gain social acceptance - she is now part of the “symbolic order” even as she transgresses it. i’m not saying her transformation doesn’t transgress this order, or that she gains the acceptance of everyone at her school - trina in particular certainly isn’t a fan - but especially at the beginning, the changes that she undergoes is perceived as her becoming a “normal” teenage girl instead of the freaky death-obsessed kid ostracized by her classmates. 

i would argue that ginger’s transformation makes her both super- and unfeminine - super-feminine in the sense that all the side effects of puberty for people with uteruses (menstruation, body hair/shaving, developing new body parts, hormones/mood swings, and awareness of sexuality/being sexually active) are exaggerated during her transformation - and a lot of these symptoms are ways in which a woman’s body is policed or found unacceptable or gross; unfeminine in the sense that, first of all, she’s becoming inhuman and gender is a very human concept, and second of all, she still doesn’t fit the mold of female expectation (i.e. shaving, dressing a certain way, being demure or nurturing, not being overconfident, not being a slut OR not being a prude, not having physical strength, etc). flaherty does make this argument via david j. hogan’s dark romance: sexuality and the horror film: “in complete confrontation with the classic view of the werewolf as ‘masculinity carried to an outrageous extreme,’ the werewolf is actually aligned with femininity carried to an extreme,” an idea that i think works really well in discussion of ginger snaps in particular. she also rejects the identity of “girl” several times - “wrists are for girls, i’m slitting my throat,” yelling at brigitte and saying she’s “just a stupid little girl” - and disparagingly points out the difference between the expectations for male and female sexuality - “he got laid, i’m just a lay.” so.... i definitely do get the interpretation of ginger’s death to have a kind of punitive logic for transgressing gendered expectations in these two different ways, but i think that’s a meta-criticism on the part of the writers, not the role that brigitte fills (for a movie that rejects the “death by morality call” of hollywood monster movies, they really did still punish her narratively for moral transgressions lmao - like flaherty says, “it appears that as subversive as the ginger snaps films are in respect to the werewolf narrative, they also reflect a deep cultural ambivalence about female identity. there is no option offered to ginger or brigitte, and due tot heir unwillingness to accept the roles predetermined for them in the society in which they live, they must be punished”). honestly i think i am nitpicking a little bit because i guess i do ultimately agree with flaherty that the story follows a normalcy > otherness > return to normalcy pattern with gendered ideas of what normalcy is, and where she loses me is her interpretation of brigitte and ginger’s social standing. to me, ginger seems really frustrated trying to navigate gender roles and her own position in society - but she is engaging with society.

you know who’s still not engaging with society? brigitte. she isn’t part of that “normalcy” at all, so to me, her rejection of the lycanthropy that ginger embraces signifies less that she sides with the social order and wants to reinforce normalcy, and more that she did a lot of growing up over the course of this movie as well, in a different direction than ginger did, and she reclaims her agency as well as her will to live. i feel like the monstrosity vs. normalcy framework ignores the fact that both ginger and brigitte are actively suicidal at the beginning of the movie - the first shot we get of ginger is her holding a knife to her wrist. at the beginning, brigitte hesitantly agrees to their suicide pact despite her obvious reservations. at the end, she strongly asserts, “i’m not dying in this room with you. i’m not dying.” so if we consider ginger’s mimetic role for brigitte, killing her isn’t reestablishing the social norm, it’s rejecting her own destructive and suicidal tendencies. i think her narrative arc teaches her: 1) how to make her own decisions separate from ginger and have agency in her own life, 2) recognition of her mother’s feelings of estrangement from her family, 3) how to connect with other people in a way that isn’t codependent, 4) rejection of suicide ideation. all of these lessons are ways of treating yourself and others with respect, compassion, and understanding - even though brigitte doesn’t change dramatically, magically becoming a saccharinely nice person or a social butterfly. she maintains her isolation and personality much more than ginger does over the course of the film. while at the beginning their fascination with their own deaths “not only demonstrates the duo’s disgust at the banality of their suburban surroundings, it also proclaims their self-stylized exclusion from the heterosexually fueled dynamics of the teen scene” (via menstrual monsters: the reception of the ginger snaps cult horror franchise), it’s ginger, not brigitte, who ends up participating in this “compulsive heterosexing high school culture,” where brigitte’s choice to not commit suicide isn’t her opting into this culture, but attempting to find a less destructive way of escaping or coping with it. 

flaherty argues that because brigitte’s first period is never discussed in the films, “she remains a child and therefore is unable to understand the true restrictiveness of woman as Other, what leads ginger to eventually embrace and enjoy her monstrosity,” but in unleashed, a fair amount of time has passed and i think it’s fair to say that brigitte no longer seems child-like (that role is assumed by ghost), and also she starts experiencing the same kind of monstrous sexuality as ginger did in the first movie - i think it misrepresents her characterization in the sequel to say that she maintains “child” status. i also think it’s not relevant to try to distinguish between “girl” and “woman” in terms of the monstrous-feminine. she still experiences alienation and otherness because she’s female and transgresses gender roles. so.... i don’t know. it’s a weird argument to make, especially since, like i said before, i consider this story a kind of coming of age for both sisters. “lycanthropy and femaleness” are not “ultimately unknowable” to her because.... she does become a werewolf over the course of both movies and she’s already female (like..... getting your period doesn’t magically make you a Real Woman lol)

i also think it’s significant that as a stand-alone movie (ignoring the sequel, which is worth watching but seriously bleak as hell) the ending is tragic but tacitly hopeful as well - as far as we know at that point brigitte has the cure (which actually works!) and is not going to kill herself. in her final confrontation with ginger, she has the cure in one hand and a knife in the other hand, and i think that nicely represents the choice that is hanging over her head the entire movie: choosing to live or choosing to die. (flaherty calls this “a telling moment of double phallic-appropriation” which..... meh. okay. not every weapon/tool used in a horror movie has to be a phallic symbol but also, sure, whatever. that’s one way to read it i guess). ginger made her decision at the very beginning of the movie 

this quote by karen walton expresses this interpretation really well:

The two sisters had this childhood bond with their pact. These two sisters were also best friends who created a bubble for themselves and took strength from each other, nourished and informed each other for a long time; but the film is not just the story of Ginger turning into a monster. It is also a story about Brigitte surviving her sister who is on a death spiral. Ginger's is a story of self-destruction. But where people get confused is that they think Ginger is the hero, but the film is really about a sister who survives a sister, who survives a best friend. An intimate relationship that becomes unhealthy and deadly.

and i’ve talked a little bit about why i feel uncomfortable with attaching a ~*girl power*~ narrative to ginger so i won’t get to much into that but i have some thoughts about that here 

also i’ve said a little bit about this before and i am basically copy/pasting from a post i already made but with a doppelgänger story like this, especially with a focus on women and madness, to me it immediately brings to mind jane eyre. i am thinking in terms of the mimetic function of jane/bertha and brigitte/ginger, with the repressed emotions and desires of the protagonist coming through in the actions of the “madwoman” character. especially brigitte’s assertion of “now i am you” when she voluntarily lets ginger turn her into a werewolf. the “madwoman” is portrayed as bestial, hypersexual, intemperate with substances, jealous, vengeful, as well as dealing with extreme anger toward confinement (ginger’s panic at getting locked up and her escape and weaponized sexuality brand of revenge is so similar to bertha like. trying to burn rochester alive and biting her brother badly enough that he passes out and other shit like that). but ALSO the other women in jane eyre have a mimetic function as well, where they can be read as potential paths for jane to follow (these choices generally can be summarized as dead or married). i think ginger snaps can be read the same way - ginger, trina, and her mother are the models of womanhood brigitte is presented with, and she is repeatedly told that what’s happening to ginger is normal, that all women experience that, and soon she will too. like the women in jane eyre, they’re models of femininity that she rejects but has to navigate because there are no other models for her. these three characters are either killed (directly or indirectly) or abandoned by her by the end of the movie. it’s actually ginger who defines the roles that women are cast into: “a slut, a bitch, a tease, or the virgin next door.” this is similar the female archetypes that jane has to navigate (and resist) throughout jane eyre. anyway this is a really roundabout way of saying that although brigitte does reject her worldview from the beginning of the movie, she doesn’t accept social order and normalcy. she doesn’t fall into any easily defined category. which is the point - “no one thinks girls do fucked up shit” but of course they do, no one thinks they can be more complex than these categories but of course they are, no one entertains the possibility that brigitte isn’t going to follow some made up universal experience of girlhood but she resists that through the end of the movie. she’s still a total weirdo <3

so yeah, i will also disagree with the assertion that both sisters lose their identities, because while i think there is a loss or a shift of identity in both ginger and brigitte, like flaherty argues, part of brigitte’s narrative arc is figuring out who she is without her dependence on her sister. brigitte saying “now i am you” feels less about loss of identity to me than actually identifying herself with the traits she sees (or used to see) in ginger - where ginger’s response (“i know you are, but what am i?”) indicates actual loss of identity rather than something transitory 

oh and also one of the main claims of this paper is that the male werewolf’s source of pain is beyond the “lifetime of morning-afters where he must confront the previous night’s excess,” and is really his “bodily alignment with another ungraspable Other, the woman” which 1) i don’t think follows the definition of the Other she establishes earlier in the paper as something that is repressed in a self or society - this use of “otherness” seems more about alignment with something different than his own identity and less about the jekyll and hyde comparison she evokes with the expression of a repressed self (imo i don’t think she should’ve used that story to support her argument since it isn’t actually about werewolves, even though i get her point about the repressed self, it’s kind of irrelevant to her argument), 2) brigitte in the first movie doesn’t seem repressed to me - she genuinely doesn’t seem to have the same impulses as ginger does and it’s not until the sequel that she actively is attempting to repress the changes that are happening to her; however, since the paper does concern the whole trilogy, i think the point is still valid, but there’s such a heavy focus on the first movie that i feel the need to dispute that interpretation of her character arc, and 3) i don’t think this interpretation really lines up with classic werewolf movies - there’s nothing particularly feminine about your standard werewolf except arguably the cyclical alignment with the moon that ginger snaps uses as a menstruation metaphor, but like. for example. i would never watch an american werewolf in london and think, “oh, his distress isn’t actually about killing innocent people, loss of control, loss of sanity, guilt and mourning because of the death of his friend, a predetermined fate, and suicide, it’s about him being female-coded” or something. like, yes, “the tragedy of the male werewolf is believed to lie exclusively in the deep anguish he feels in violating the very societal boundaries he has come to live under” and it’s interesting to dig deeper into that in terms of gender and sexuality, but i don’t think femaleness is inherent in the distress of the male werewolf - of course this is true in ginger snaps (with jason’s transformation being particularly distressing to him because it mirrors menstruation). the assertion that the classic werewolf “bleeds uncontrollably until his transformation is complete” similarly seems unfounded to me because i’ve never seen that in werewolf movies and she doesn’t cite where she finds that symptom of the transformation - maybe i am missing something there? if anyone knows of a depiction where that’s the case let me know, because that’s definitely a stronger argument for werewolves = menstruation-coded.

and re: the quote i cited earlier about werewolves = femininity taken to the extreme: i don’t think that argument holds true in the classic depiction/cultural perception of the werewolf. i think this post makes a more supportable (and concise) argument:

There are hardly any female werewolves because they break all the classic rules of femininity. They force you to confront female violence, strength, size, grotesqueness and uncontrollability. Historically female shapeshifters always shift into something dangerous (snake) or sleek (cat) or dainty (bird) but female werewolves ignore the masculine gaze completely. They're distorted beasts that have no ulterior motive except to destroy. Nothing about them is nurturing or modest. They're the opposite of what a woman "should be." Their omission from pop culture is not an accident.

all that being said, i did enjoy this article, especially starting at the section titled “wrists are for girls; i’m slitting my throat:” ginger fitzgerald’s monstrosity and all the stuff about ginger’s transformation as a reflection of "monstrosity” as a teenage girl, and suburban landscape of repression. one description of brigitte’s conflict that i actually really like: “unlike the male werewolf’s double, brigitte yearns not for the eradication of her other half but for the reconciliation.” i think it’s a really interesting read, even if i don’t agree with a lot of it. and maybe i’m way off base? maybe i’m interpreting brigitte as a character too generously? let me know what you guys think 

[madexinxheaven]

@whoxyouxhate said: 💊 - Is your character on medication? If so, why? @ the mains

"In this line of work and after everything we've been through? How could I NOT?"

Seriously, no one saw the kind of things Caitlyn had seen without developing serious cases of PTSD, SEPARATION ANXIETY & PARANOIA. She couldn't even HUNT these days without being hopped up on meds. After all, the last time she went out on the hunt, she'd come back to a BLOODBATH; With every last servant DEAD and her parents MISSING. Since then she'd risen up the ranks of the L.G.D as far and the way most prolific SNIPER they had. And from INFECTED to MURDER to RAPE to THIS VERY WAR, well... They hadn't made the nightmares any easier... The meds did, though. (Kinda...)

"This world breaks people. One way or the other."

"I, uhh... Texas says I SHOULD..."

Hyperactivity, blunt impulsion and a struggle with maintaining her own attention had LONG been problems that had cast Exusiai into danger TIME & TIME AGAIN. The youthful Sankta had a whole list of bad run-ins, mistakes, REGRETS, to her record. Yet, still, for the most part, she remained UNBOTHERED -- UNBURDENED. Fact also remained that she'd grown RECKLESS, CARELESS & IMPULSIVE in many things. Definitely didn't get enough sleep at night. And had a tendency for getting herself KNEE DEEP IN SHIT. But she meant well, and had fun, and only hurt the BAD PEOPLE, right? So it couldn't have been THAT IMPORTANT... -- RIIIGHT??

"But... What's the WORST that could happen?"

"I... What exactly are we counting as medication here?"

Did they count the CANDIES & TREATMENTS that protected against FROSTBITE? Did they count the various ways she'd tried over the years to actually feel some level of WARMTH? To warm the CHILL that was in her deathly rattling bones? Or were they just talking about the medications that Rhodes Island filled Infection with to pretend like they were actually making a DIFFERENCE. Then again, maybe they WERE making a difference... And it was all just so much harder for FrostNova to see from so far away. Irregardless, the answer was: No. she DIDN'T take any official medications. But she had her own self-medications. For what they counted for. 

"I make do."

"Mmh? Oh, no..."

Shake of her accompanied her simple answer. Sometimes she wondered if she should have. Mostly whenever her personality PISSED OFF Blaze, but in truth she spent more time ADMINISTERING medication than TAKING IT. After all, she may have been a designated SNIPER, but she still was an operator working for Rhodes Island. And every last INFECTED in the world NEEDED medication. In fact, the more she thought about it... Maybe they should've been screening people more closely on a PSYCHOLOGICAL basis rather than observing their levels of ORIGINUM CRYSTALIZATION, no? Not to say they didn’t. They absolutely did. PRTS was surprisingly adept at it. But... But just like with treating the Infected, couldn’t they always do a better job at that, too?

"It's surprising, really. Or... Or maybe we're just not thinking about that kinda stuff? Maybe it's just become the new normal, y'know?"

"Medication? Me? Oh, no. I'm not any medication."

Granted, for every pill Makoto DIDN'T take she had a line in her contract with JOHANNA that all but unshackled her from the constraints of her greatest mental battles. Including her OBSESSIVE COMPULSION, PERFECTIONISM, CODEPENDENCY & INABILITY TO SAY NO BORN OF NO SMALL AMOUNT OF SELF-DEPRECATION. But then, didn't Johanna make everything in Makoto's life turn monochrome? Flirting in that moral grey area, caught between her duty as a Lungmen Guard and her own INFECTED VIGILANCE. In many ways, she supposed she was LUCKY for that. Every last inch of that self-deprecation came with another inch of herself she GENUINELY didn't like. And since Johanna had come into her life, Makoto had step-for-step came closer & closer to someone she could be PROUD OF.

"But I don't blame people if they need it. This... This world is... It's hard... So very hard..."

"Huh? Medication? What on Terra possessed you to ask a question like that?"

For once, Swire was NOT acting out of self-defence but, rather, asking very genuine questions. Albeit... She still didn't exactly ask them WELL. Confrontation was Swire's life. The bitch wore her heart on her sleeve, and her heart was big but easily wounded. To answer: Swire was not presently on any medication. She'd had her BOUTS of issues and therapies, usually when those insecurities ADDED UP, and she stopped being able to SIT ON HER FEELINGS, but largely she remained clean. At her standard, she liked to think she was HANDLING IT WELL... ALL THINGS CONSIDERED... But deep down? Well... Her episodes DID speak for themselves. (And it was usually Ch'en picking up the pieces.)

"Not right now. But sometimes life just gets to ya, y'know?"

"Medication? Hm. Sounds almost novel at this point, in all honesty. One might say, NAIVE."

If ANYONE was a poster-child for SHOULD BE ON MEDICATION, it was far and away TALULAH ARTORIUS. The girl had been broken for one or two decades far too long. & now she was FAR TOO FAR GONE. Pretty sure anyone who rallies together a radicalized group of freedom fighters to take over Lungmen & Ursus through TERROR TACTICS with a central goal of enacting revenge on the friends and family that HURT THEM as a child most certainly qualified for needing therapy. (Or maybe an ASYLUM.) Maybe if people had cared back when she was still BREAKING, all of this coud've been avoid. And, no, Ch'en DIDN'T count. How could she? What was her baby sister SUPPOSED to do about her abused sister who had been driven to psychosis by their very own family?

"We're far beyond the point of no return by now. Sometimes tells me I'm going to die before even taking one pill."

"Kee-Ahaha... Haha... Ahahahahahaha... Oh... That's cute."

Holy. Fucking. Shit. They really had to ASK that question? No. Of course she wasn 't on MEDICATION. The psychotic bitch didn't even let Rhodes Island treat her for Oripathy and she'd SIGNED ON AS THEIR MERCENARY. Of course, being feared by every last motherfucker in the galaxy kinda had some BENEFITS in that sense. Now, should she have been? Of course she should have been. Girl had one of the highest Originum densities in all of Rhodes Island. Oh, and there was the little tid bit of her being a PYROMANIACAL, MURDEROUS LITTLE PSYCHO. Yeah, that level of destructive psychotic mania PROBABLY needed a maximum security INSANE ASYLUM, let alone anti-psychotics and sedatives. But as they say somewhere else in the world: Y.O.L.O!!

"I'd like to meet the doctor that can actually make me take my pills~~!!"

"..."

Silence spoke louder than words, as they always say. And the truth was... Yuhsia was on SEVERAL medications as a result of the youth she spent alone in Lungmen after the disappearance of TALULAH and the abandonment of CH'EN & SWIRE. Would anyone really be surprised to learn that? Probably NOT, in all honesty. Mafia girl was left alone with some of the corrupt narcissist this side of the Ursus border and later forced to do all of the Rat King & Wei Yenwu's DIRTY WORK. Not to mention the sting of BROKEN PROMISES. To this day, Yuhsia had never EVER let anyone get remotely close to her. Most of all, Ch'en & Swire. Though they persisted like nagging little GNATS. But back to the question at hand... Yuhsia had developed a certain... TEMPERAMENT that she liked to keep on top of. The Rat King saw the worst of it. But she'd be damned if she EVER let Ch'en and Swire see it in the slightest. Meds HELPED with that.

"You should be careful asking questions like that to people like me. Who knows what might happen to you..."