#i have two younger siblings who have similar personalities to them are they 'abusing' me now?is that how it works?you're so progressive /s

[jeweled-blue-eyes]

How the hell does Derrick have so much authority over Penelope? Something I never understood was how it was possible that Derrick, being only the eldest brother, could grant harsh punishments such as feeding his younger sister bread and water or restricting her mobility, without even consulting his father, the Duke. Clearly they have given me more power than a simple brother should have in my opinion, I am an only child so I don't know much about sibling dynamics, but it seems strange to me that Derrick has more influence in Penelope's life than her own father at the point. That when she is arrested, he is the one who goes to visit her. Don't you think that in a situation like this the legal guardian should go?

what is an elder brother if not a second absent father? From the start Derrick seemed to me more like an abusive guardian than an elder brother. His actions towards Penelope were never those of a brother towards a sister. Their relationship was not sibling like. In a similar manner I don't view Reynold and Derrick's relationship as very brotherly. It might have been different once. Before Ivonne disappeared. He helped Reynold and Ivonne sneak out to visit the festival, didn't he? Disobeying his father, that doesn't sound like something the Derrick we know would do. But something in Derrick must have changed after he lost his little sister and made him crave control.

Their relationship would be more comparable to a guardian and ward. I hesitate to call it parentification, because Derrick absolutely did not meet the emotional needs of Reynold and Penelope (he probably barely interacted with Penelope) but I do think he took to some degree care of Reynold in a way their father failed them. I believe he had to grow up too early and that his childhood was cut short given the fact that he had to be prepared to become the next head of the Eckart duchy and their father had likely fallen into a depression after experiencing the loss of his most treasured child. Perhaps Derrick wanted to share his father's burden and offered to take on some of his tasks. Such tasks may have also included looking after the children that the duke was neglecting over his grief at Ivonne's disappearance. Making sure Reynold doesn't stray away from the right path and gets in trouble, being in charge of punishments for minor offenses that he considers too unimportant to bother his father about, ironing out his mistakes, overseeing his education, budgeting etc. You can see where I'm going with this: Derrrick was a person of authority in Reynold's life (hc). And I think that's how he became easily a person of authority in Penelope's life as well. If Derrick did his role so well with Reynold then this could explain why the Duke entrusted him with Penelope. Though I suspect that most often the Duke had no idea what kind of punishments Derrick was handing out to Penelope. I can imagine that at the start Derrick was asking his father for permission for every little thing that eventually the Duke just handed a share of his power over to Derrick. And when he noticed that Derrick acted independently he found that it had a positive impact on their family interests, which caused him to have a little bit too much trust in Derrick's judgement without checking.

Unusual circumstances forced Derrick into the role of the little Duke to support his father and unconsciously everyone around him started to get used to it. Derrick gaining more power over his siblings than he should have wasn't seen as something weird, because he was a precocius child and already preparing to follow into his father's footsteps as the next Duke anyway. Everyone else was so busy searching for Ivonne or offering their condolences, they had forgotten completely that they still had two other children in the house which were in need of parental care.

In my opinion part of the reason had to do with their father's mental state and inability to act as a guardian, part was Derrick's overqualification in certain fields that made people trust him to take on tasks that they would not have given other kids his age typically, part was that his status as the Eckart heir lifted him above his siblings and he would enjoy certain privileges that were connected to serious responsibilities in the future that neither of his siblings would have to fullfill. I think Penelope's gender also played a major role given that they were living in a patriarchy where the domination of women through their male relatives and spouses was normalized. The story is set in a historically western inspired world but the author herself is Korean. It is possible that some Confucian ideas of filial piety still made it into the text.

Lastly there was the underlying idea that Penelope had to prove herself worthy of the Eckart name. If Derrick's treatment of her was that of a master to his servant or a noble to a commoner instead of a brother to his sister or a nobleman to a noblewoman then it was condoned because no one viewed Penelope as an Eckart except for her stepfather. The staff acted under the assumption that Penelope was living there temporary and would be thrown away once the true lady had returned. Even if some of them had objections they were in no position to voice them. Only very few would intervene in other people's family affairs.

As for why Derrick went to visit Penelope in prison instead of his father: plot related reasons. Love interests are generally given more screentime than side characters such as parents. Penelope's situation also wouldn't have looked that bleak if instead of her brother her father had come. Unlike Derrick the Duke would have shown that he cared. Besides the scene of Penelope trapped behind bars was important, it was meant to parallel the bird in the cage that Derrick gifted her and would serve as a hint that Derrick's desire for Penelope was dark and possessive.

I can also imagine that their father was doing paperwork, looking for a good lawyer or meeting with influencial people and trying to negotiate better conditions for Penelope in the meantime.

[kkatastrophic]

role-swapped: sokka, and either fire sibling

made an account solely for this, but i feel like sokka role swapped with either sibling (either zuko or azula) makes some sort of sense. call me crazy (if anyone is even seeing this to call me crazy at all, then hello) all you want, but i don't know, i feel like it makes sense. though to be fair, i do really um, overanalyze things and might just be making my explanation sound really ooc and weird and too 'he's me i'm giving him my issues'. not sure. just here to be overdramatic i guess. sorta relate to all three of these characters so. take my 'it makes sense!!!11111!!11!!' with a grain of salt. also scared i got the characters all wrong. so. yeah

firstly, the similarities.

sokka and zuko:

sokka and zuko are both insecure fellas who want to prove to someone that they are honorable and worthy people; zuko wants to show his father and his nation that he is a worthy prince that should return to his rightful place for the throne, and sokka wants to show his father and his tribe that he is a strong and manly warrior, that he can protect katara and the tribe. they both have something to prove, something they want to become. they are both overshadowed by their prodigious sister and they both find themselves feeling lesser by it, just in different ways. sokka doesn't feel as useful as he wants to be and zuko feels like a failure compared to azula. they both don't quite like the fact that their skills aren't the best they believe they could be. the two of them both solve an issue between themselves: sokka learns how to overcome obstacles without bending, and zuko learns how to follow his own destiny and stand up for himself. they both have lost their mother, they both have distant fathers (except hakoda isn't distant because he wants to be, nor is he abusive, but that doesn't mean he isn't distant), and these similarities made me write this whole thing. it would be interesting to see how much would change and how much would stay the same, what life would be like for zuko and what life would be like for sokka. would their personalities swap as well? sokka's would change drastically, but i think zuko's would not change extremely.

sokka and azula:

don't get me wrong, sokka is insecure and everything, but he's also much like azula, at least, in my eyes he is. azula and sokka are both crippling perfectionists, excelling at a specific thing: azula's firebending and battle (plus regular) intelligence, and sokka's skillful planning, his own battle (and regular) intelligence, and inventing. they both see their father in a bright light, they both were heavily affected by his actions and again, they both lost their mother. due to their need to succeed and win, they both become irrational and heavily emotional when they do not. sokka blames himself for the loss during the eclipse raid, and azula has a mental breakdown when she loses against katara and zuko during sozin's comet. when they've been defeated, they break down in one way or another. and back to the first sentence, azula is insecure too. she feels unlovable and has major trust issues, and more that if i said, would make this already somewhat long thing even longer.

—

now: onto what i feel like the characters would be with roles swapped. zuko role-swapped with sokka: an insecure sixteen-year-old, angsty boy with a crippling need to be useful for his family. he misses his father dearly and wishes he could have spent more time with his mother, whose face he can't even remember. he looks like a trash bender compared to his younger sister, azula, who has blue fire and a natural, raw talent. he wants to be a warrior like his father, fighting against the monstrous water tribes. he's insecure about his unimpressive bending but learns to improve his skill and find new techniques instead of letting his self-hatred get the best of him. he helps aang, the avatar, defeat the water tribes, and while on adventures with the gaang, he learns to accept himself. he becomes more than just a planning, brooding, awkward guy; instead of making himself feel worse with his less-than-average firebending skills, he focuses more on using double swords, becoming very good at it. he rarely uses his firebending because of it, realizing that he doesn't need to be a good bender to be a good fighter/warrior. sokka role-swapped with zuko: a self-hating fifteen-year-old who misses his tribe and misses his honor. he is worthless, weak, and a failure, horrible at waterbending, unlike his gifted sister, katara. his father gave his left eye frost burn, and he is partially deaf and blind on the left side of his face due to it, but he deserved it; he spoke out of line, disrespected his elder, disrespected Ice (or water) Lord Hakoda, his own dad. ever since he was twelve, he has been looking for the missing avatar to bring back to his tribe to make his father (and tribe) proud and love him again. he travels with his honorary uncle bato, who helps him eventually turn a new leaf. bato helps him learn new skills and new techniques that help him improve his waterbending quickly, being patient with him and supporting him through his darkest moments. he realizes that what he is doing is wrong and he abandons his home and his father to help aang, the avatar whom he had been hunting constantly, learn waterbending. he learns from his mistakes and successfully becomes the Ice / Water Lord, helping aang defeat his father and simultaneously helping azula defeat his maniacal sister, katara. —

sokka role-swapped with azula: either thirteen or fifteen-year-old.(katara as zuko is aged up if sokka is fifteen, sokka as azula is aged down if he is thirteen) he is an extremely impressive waterbender, gifted and prodigious, unlike his poor older sister, katara. if he wants something he gets it, and he will go at any length to win, to defeat, to conquer. he, much like his talented father, never fail, they never fail, and they never will! he doesn't need anyone's trust or love; spirits, he doesn't need anyone. sokka'll use peoples' fear of him to get whatever the hell he wants, no matter what. his mother was right; he is a monster, and he- he takes pride in it! after his so-called 'friends' betrayed him, one for looooove and the other for, well, the one in love. ((can you tell i have no clue who to make his friends? maybe suki and yue?)) he saw her once again, taunting him while he grew furious with his stupid long hair. (stupid wolftails.) he messes his hair up, messes up once again, and throws the scissors in the mirror to try and make his dead, naive, stupid mom go away. but that's not all: even though he's perfect, even though he's supposed to be, he fucks it up. his father was supposed to be the Ocean King, and sokka himself was supposed to be the new Ice/Water Lord, but of course, his stupid sister and her stupid fire-bending friend got in the way of the water tribe's supposed-to-be success and defeated him, humiliated him. and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. he breaks down, crying nonstop and feeling utterly defeated.

azula role-swapped with sokka: she's the genius. she's the one who does the planning, it's azula. not zuko with his amazing firebending, not aang with his... dumb avatar-ness, not toph with her scary earthbending; no, it's sixteen-year old ((aged up to be oldest in the gaang like sokka is, but she can still be fourteen if u want i don't know.)) azula, the bad bender. agni, she's basically a non-bender anyway, with the way her fire can barely light a torch. but her uselessness doesn't stop her from trying to be perfect, of course it doesn't! she's useful, she knows it, she just has to figure out how. she can't strive to be anything less, not when she wants to protect her brother and her friends. not when she wants to be the next chief of the fire nation when this is all over. instead of wallowing in her own self-hatred, she decides to try something new; she decides to try bows and arrows. and agni, she's good. she decides that she doesn't need to be a master bender like zuko, aang, and toph are, because she's a master in her own way and doesn't need her firebending to be useful. she can still protect her friends and brother without relying on her bending. and while azula sometimes wishes that she were as talented as zuko is with firebending, she also understands that she is just as talented as he is without firebending, but with her bow. she accepts herself and her flaws.

—

while i think zuko and sokka's role-swap would make sense and works better, i also think that azula and sokka's role-swap works too, just a little... reachy. i guess. i don't know!!!! i just. sorta been thinking about this for too long. ahaaa i don't think this is gonna be read at ALLLL so hey guys! hey fruity gang! #awesome!

might post art idk? blegh ... SORRY TO WHOEVER READS THIS LIKE THIS IS SERIOUSLY DEF OOC IDK.

[meraki24601]

would you write something where caretaker and whumpee are siblings (whumpee is the smaller) who haven’t spoken in years because of a fight. but the caretaker gets a new job at this rich man’s mansion (whumper) and finds that the little pet they keep talking about is actually human and guess what it’s their brother

Hello friend! It's a bit of a slow starter, but I hope you like it!

-----------*-***-*-----------

A New Pet

I finally found a decent job. After three years of living paycheck to paycheck, seeing a decent amount of money in my bank account felt terrific. Real adult money!

Things had been rough after I left my family. I can’t say I never regretted the way I went. Nearly a year had passed before I could admit my parents were abusive. But they weren’t the reason I left. My parents meant nothing to me. All I needed was Whumpee, my younger sibling. 

It’s ironic how Whumpee ended up being the reason I left.

Nothing could have prepared me for them to turn on me. We argued worse than our parents ever had. One loud, cruel argument. I honestly can’t remember what we were fighting about. It didn’t matter then and still doesn’t now. They abandoned me when I needed them, and that was that. 

Living is hard when you’re on your own. I found a couple people from school who liked me enough to let me live with them until I found an apartment. From there, I worked my way up. Fast food, temporary janitor, full-time janitor, temporary house management, and, finally, full-time personal assistant. Considering how things started, three years was surprisingly quick to make it as far as I have. 

Whumper definitely took some getting used to. They found me when I was still working full-time as a janitor in one of their buildings. I think they were just excited to find someone who liked animals as much as they did. We both loved rescue pets. At the time, they had just lost one of their older pets, and their newer pet was acting up. After I gave them some advice, they kept coming back to talk. Turns out, they liked how I organized my supplies and kept the other janitors on track. 

That first month in charge of Whumper’s house was a test run I passed with flying colors. Obviously, Whumper was super busy every day. I was able to ease some of the burden and made sure the giant mansion was always ready for anything Whumper could dream of. The others took to me quickly, listening to orders and getting out of the way faster than ever. Before the month was over, Whumper had invited me to take over as their personal assistant. 

My current job for Whumper is better than I ever could have dreamed. They’re a bit eccentric, but what billionaire isn’t? Most of what I do is make sure no one bothers Whumper. A majority of the household staff do their best to stay out of our employer’s way, so I don’t have to worry about them. Honestly, I’m not sure the others like Whumper. 

I was given a mini apartment and space for my cats in the mansion. Surprisingly enough, I get three days off every week. Whumper and I talk about our rescue pets and our past every day they’re home. (Whumper and I had similar family experiences.) I get to go on expensive trips when Whumper needs my help. They even gave me access to their drivers when I needed to go shopping. 

Yesterday, Whumper and I made it home from a two-week trip. A majority of what I did was talking on the phone. Taking calls, organizing meetings, coordinating with other people’s assistants, and ensuring Whumper had time to attend the club meetings for some rich person pet rescue association. 

That club is the only thing Whumper keeps to themselves. They make sure I know when they have meetings, but they won’t give me any contact information to take care of things for them. They always drive themselves to the meetings instead of taking the driver when meetings are in town. All I know is they rescue animals and train them to be good pets. 

On this last trip, Whumper was really excited about their progress with their latest pet. Apparently, they had learned a new training method that was extremely successful. The animal they had rescued was taken from an abusive home. They had been treated terribly for years before Whumper saved them. At first, the animal had acted up, but with some “careful but intense” training, they had made great progress. 

During the flight home, Whumper was practically vibrating in their chair. “I did it, Caretaker.” They whispered in my ear with a giddy giggle. “The pet we were working with is mine. I decided to keep it. I’ve always trained them and sent them on to new homes. I found it, trained it, and this time they’re mine. It’s all thanks to you.”

Their new pet would be arriving in a week.

They wouldn’t let me help them with preparations. I had to clear Whumper’s schedule as much as possible because of it. Generally, I plan for a day or two of rest after a big trip, so those first two days, Whumper was able to fully focus and seemed to make good progress. Whumper was going to change their basement game room into a rescue shelter. 

“You’re going to love it.” Whumper grinned on the fourth day with a large box in their arms. They had skipped an interview to go shopping, and I had caught them red-handed. “I’ve got all the latest equipment. My pet is going to be so loved. So well cared for. I know I’m being difficult, but when you see them, it’ll all be worth it.”

The day before the animal was scheduled to arrive, Whumper paced outside the door to the basement. It was surprisingly hard to find in the large mansion. Hidden doors weren’t odd in the building, though. Passages turned in interesting directions. Some rooms weren’t on the floorplan. I still wasn’t allowed inside the room, but Whumper had gotten nervous and had called me to the door to calm them down. “What if they don’t like it here? What if they reject their training? We went through everything so quickly. Generally, it takes months if not a year to reach the point where new pets can leave one of the training halls. Do you think I’m ready for this? I’ve never kept a pet before.”

Mumbling and pacing in a small circle around me, they questioned themselves over and over again. Finally, I grabbed their hand, “Whumper. You’re ready. You are going to show your new pet they are loved and cared for. It will take some time, but won’t it be worth it?”

“You’re right. With your help, I can do it. I never could have come this far if I didn’t have you here. I… I know I’ve been hiding a lot of this from you. Thank you for your patience. One more day and the new pet will be here. Then, you can know everything. You can see the room. Maybe, I can even bring you to the next meeting! No more secrets. We can care for our pet together.” Whumper pulled me into a tight hug.

“Oh.” I flinched at the strength behind the hug, “Yeah. Yeah, I can probably help you.”

When the pet arrived, Whumper banned me to my room until everything was in place. It took nearly the whole day for them to decide everything was perfect. They even had the cook bring me my lunch, which, was a rather odd experience. The cook and I generally got along well, but they left without a word. I could have sworn they were crying. I just made a note to check on them later and closed the door. 

Finally, Whumper knocked on my door. “It’s ready, Caretaker! Come on. Let me show you.”

I don’t know why, but I had a very bad feeling as Whumper led me through the familiar halls. The whole mansion felt unusually cold. The staff was quiet as we passed. It was just wrong. 

The door opened on silent hinges as Whumper stepped aside for me to enter the room. A short staircase and another door stared me in the face. This door was metal and covered in locks. 

“They’re beautiful, Caretaker.” Whumper’s arms wrapped around my waist from behind. “I really hope you like the surprise. Unfortunately, they misbehaved during transport, so they’re not as perfect as I hoped, but they’re ours. Ours forever.”

Whumper kept their hold on me as they pushed toward the door. A large keyring jingled as they opened the locks. I wanted to run. This was wrong. Every sense I had was screaming danger. There was no way to go but forward. The door opened. 

The room was bright. Clinical. There was nothing in the room that grabbed my attention more than the cage. In the center of the room, trapped in a cage made of golden bars, was Whumper’s new pet. 

Whumpee. 

Not a dog or a cat or any kind of animal. Whumper’s pet was my younger sibling. Even as I looked at them, I barely recognized them. Thin and pale, they looked like they hadn’t eaten for days. Scars covered almost every inch of their exposed skin. Even worse, Whumpee’s eyes stared at the floor. The one thing we’ve known since we were small was never to lose track of the people in the room. Always keep your eyes on the enemy. Whumpee never looked up once.

“You weren’t lying when you told me what your parents were like.” Whumper sighed, finally releasing me. “When we rescued them, they had already been beaten within an inch of their life. They were wild. For a moment, I thought they were unrecoverable. I didn’t want to give up on them, though. They hurt you. They don’t deserve your love, but, you do still love them, don’t you? I can tell by how you talk about them. Don't worry, they'll never hurt you again or they'll suffer the consequences.

"We can help them learn. Teach them to be good. We saved them from your past, and together, we can keep them forever. You helped me so much, Caretaker. I was lost before I found you. This is my gift to you. Tell me, do you like it?” 

My skin crawls. Whumpee whimpers. Whumper picks up a knife.

“Come, Caretaker. Let me show you how well they’ve been trained.”

Part 2

[unamazing-sheep21]

Crimson Peak and Toilet Bound Hanako kun

For those of you unaware of Toilet bound Hanako Kun, trust me it's a great sereis it's name is just translated wrong, ok? Ok. It's about a girl whose fate gets mixed up with a ghost who haunts a bathroom and grants wishes and they get into a bunch of insane scenarios together.

For those unaware of crimson peak, it's a gothic romance movie released in 2015 ( a year after the serialisation of tbhk started) and stars Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, and Jesica Chastain and takes place in a haunted old house.

Now I need to talk about the absolutely insane and sickening parallels between Crimson peak and TbHk they make me physically ill I can't not talk about them.

Both series center around two toxic siblings who are codependent on each other and are both figuratively and/or literally dead ( Amane and Tsukasa) and ( Thomas and Lucille). Both of these siblings live in, and have trauma steming from, haunted houses with red in their name ( The Red house for tbhk) and ( crimson peak for crimson peak lol). Both older siblings end up killing their younger siblings in the end ( Amane and Lucille).

Here's where stuff gets interesting.

Character wise, Amane and Thomas are far more similar to each other despite holding opposite roles. They both wanted desperately for freedom and to travel beyond places they were effectively bound to. They're both good at mechanics and are really smart boys despite not ever getting any of the recognition they deserve. They both end up falling for a girl who, to them, represents happiness and their own salvation. They're both naturally more effeminate and have low self esteem, they're both liars and do it for selfless but selfish reasons at the same time. All they really want is for their girl to live and be happy, going to insane lengths to do it ( Thomas ended up dying for her, Hanako did all sorts of pizza to the point where he dies a second death even). But Amane KILLED his younger brother,, Thomas was the younger brother who was killed.

likewise, Tsukasa and Lucille are also extremely similar character wise. They're both very unstable beings who became this way because of abuse and are both hell bent on saving/protecting/possessing their sibling very much, almost to ( and to) the point of perversion. In both stories they both cannonicaly perform acts of seggsual assault ( it's not debatable for Tsukasa 😐). They're both antagonists who end up harming the person they swear to protect and everyone else around them. They're both control freaks who are able to manipulate and take control of their victims with ease but they both have understandable origins of how they became like this. But Tsukasa is the little brother who was killed, and Lucille killed her little brother.

Also both Allerdale Hall and The red house have wells under them where deceased wives are burried and become ghosts and also lead to a supernatural realm.

I had to type this out because I thought it was super neat tee hee

[achaotichuman]

I always wanted to ask you this, but what do you think about Tamlin and Alis relationship? (Plus her two nephews whom I've named sprout and twigs)

First of all, I love the names Spout and Twigs, that's is absolutely adorable and gives me a nice picture for their personalities.

I think Tamlin and Alis' relationship is similar to that of a mother-son relationship. Which is why I loathed it when Feyre destroyed the Spring Court and therefore drove Alis and everyone else away.

In my head, I think Alis would be a sort of mother figure for when Tamlin's mother wasn't there. I don't believe that woman was ever that emotionally available. i don't think it was any real fault of her own, I think Tamlin's mother, who I've named Dahlia, but I don't think she was ever there as a mother. I think Tamlin loved her the most of all his family because she was the only one who didn't physically abuse him, so in his child mind, that meant she was the 'safe' option.

Then there's Alis, who stepped in whenever Tamlin's mother should have been there. Bandaging wounds, tucking him into bed, reading him stories, teaching and playing with him. Not ignoring his needs, etc. Things that his biological mother was supposed to be doing.

I think Tamlin doesn't resent his mother, but I do think he thinks of Alis like his 'mom'. That also means that I believe he would treat her nephews like younger siblings. I bet Tamlin would teach them all about the wild, animals, camping and hunting. I think he would teach them fighting techniques and campfire songs. I also believe Tamlin would go out of his way to teach Sprout and Twigs all the trickery in the books. How to sneak out of their rooms, how to pull of pranks and tricks.

I also believe Sprout and Twigs would be two very mischievous boys, getting into all sorts of trouble, breaking things on accident, running in the house, getting dirty in their good clothing.

I think Alis, Sprout, Twigs and Tamlin would be their own little found family. I would also love to see Alis' sister and brother, the parents of Sprout and Twigs, I have no real ideas for them, but I think they would gladly welcome Tamlin into the family.

[watermelonsloth]

What I Ship Because I’ve Been Semi-Vague

I talk about shipping a lot, but since I talk about whatever’s popular over what I actually like (this may or may not change), you might not know what I actually ship. Or you do because you stalked me or read the few fanfictions that I posted here and will probably move because it’s weird to have fanfics on a mostly commentary focused blog.

Regardless, for anyone who’s interested, here’s what I actually do like. Also, just to make sure that all of my credibility goes down the toilet, all accept one (maybe two) of these is a crackship.

The Ships I Sold My Soul To

These are the ships I like the most. Yes, I’ve already imagined AUs with them and I’ve given them all children. I promise I have a thought process that makes sense (to me) behind them all. However, I don’t want to turn this into a 100,000 word essay, so I’ll try to summarize what I like about them in 1-2 (potentially run-on) sentences. Just know, there’s more to all of these.

NejiNaru (Neji Hyuga x Naruto Uzumaki) - Both characters had their lives decided/changed at birth against their will, but walked out of it with vastly different perspectives. This combined with them having complimentary personalities makes me think that they could have very positive impacts on each other’s lives if they were given just a bit more time to get invested in each other.

GaaSaku (Gaara x Sakura Haruno) - Both characters would greatly benefit from having (emotional) support in a relationship and both characters are deathly loyal to a fault. They also both need and have different perspectives that they wouldn’t hesitate in sharing with each other.

SasuIno (Sasuke Uchiha x Ino Yamanaka) - Both are highly confident, independent people who wouldn’t take shit from each other (which is important when both absolutely pull some shit). They’re also loyal to anyone who earns it, are very driven, don’t stand for people getting hurt unjustly, care deeply for their clans and clan traditions, and roll their eyes at their friends’ shenanigans despite everyone knowing that they’d both kill and die for them.

ChouTen (Chouji Akimichi x TenTen) - They are similar in the best ways and different where it counts. TenTen would motivate Chouji to work harder then complain with him about how hard it is to work hard and Chouji would absolutely help her have more faith in ninjas being able to become great with hard work alone.

ShikaKiba (Shikamaru Nara x Kiba Inuzuka) - Like Sasuke and Ino, they come across as very different on the outside but have a lot of similarities when you dig a little deeper. Along with them being good to have in each other’s lives, each other’s families would also be good influences on them (Shikamaru would benefit from being around very expressive and strong female role models, and Kiba would benefit from being around patient people with higher IQs).

TemaHina (Temari x Hinata Hyuga) - They could relate with each other when it comes to growing up as the older sisters trained to be weapons since birth overlooked in favor of their very talented younger siblings with physically absent moms and emotionally absent, abusive fathers that are not only skilled ninja but also hold great social-political power, but they could still offer each other different perspectives. Temari could help Hinata gain more confidence and stand up for herself while Hinata can help Temari learn how to approach situations with kindness rather than the anger/violence that’s been taught to her.

ShinoLee (Shino Aburame x Rock Lee) - These two are so fucking different and they cover each other’s blind spots so fucking well. Rock Lee is very passionate and memorable, but he doesn’t realize he can rely on others (seriously, he does everything alone) while Shino doesn’t have direction and is insecure about not sticking out, but he’s characterized as being very aware of the importance of teamwork, even when it’s with people outside of team 8.

KakuDei (Kakuzu x Deidara) - Both characters value respect and strength, are able to keep a clear mind even when their short tempers get the better of them, and are deceptively intelligent. Kakuzu could also benefit from taking more risks and Deidara could benefit from keeping his head on the ground, both of which the other could force help them to do.

ItaHida (Itachi Uchiha x Hidan) - Both of them are so devoted to their beliefs that it’s actually a problem (they both only think inside the box and are the opposite of self aware) and both of them would jump at the opportunity to call the other out on it. In the cases where they wouldn’t be able to influence (Itachi making Hidan a bit more patient, Hidan making Itachi more willing to call out bullshit, etc) or call out each other enough to change, they’d be able to easily cover for the other’s weaknesses (like, so easily that they’d be a horrific combat pair).

KisaSaso (Kisame Hoshigaki x Sasori) - These two know what it’s like to believe one thing for years and years then have your worldview shattered in an instant, making them potentially very affirming for each other. They both also value honesty and commit when they decide to trust someone or do something because of their past experiences.

Comfort Ships

These are the ships that I don’t have too much reason behind (even if there is some), I’m not super committed to finding or making content for, and I don’t really think of them in any deep or sophisticated or analytic way. They’re comfy, they’re chill, and that’s all I want them to be.

SasuKarin (Sasuke Uchiha x Karin Uzumaki) - I’ve read so many think pieces about these two and their relationship that this was inevitable. I did this to myself.

ChouSaku (Chouji Akimichi x Sakura Haruno) - They both have body image issues and a deep love for their friends. They are so fluffy, I want them to cook together, and their child would be nicknamed Cherry.

LeeSaku (Rock Lee x Sakura Haruno) - Their development during the Chunin Exams still lives rent free in my brain and they’re both such romantics. This one I switch in and out of shipping.

LeeHina (Rock Lee x Hinata Hyuga) - They have a weird amount of similarities and they’d be cute. That’s it.

SasuHina (Sasuke Uchiha x Hinata Hyuga) - They look nice together and have a bit of a night sky aesthetic. This one is the one that I think about the least, like, I’m not entirely sure if I actually ship them or I just like looking at fanart of them.

[bonefall]

Similar to how Storm felt like she was defending an abuser because victims do that, Thunder almost feels like a legitimate reaction to knowing you were abandoned and wanting to somehow make up for it as if it’s your fault even though it isn’t - and then the series is immune to Clear Sky being bad and Thunder’s rose-tinted glasses are just the narrative’s shitty lens. And like you’re right the dissonance between everybody acting like he’s great and his actual frustrating appearances is so strong it feels like it’s building to some kind of “actually he sucked the whole time” realisation and it just?? Isn’t. So like shit dude maybe if Thunder didn’t wanna be abandoned he should’ve simply been a cooler baby, obviously it’s not Clear Sky being awful /j

In my own family, there are two people in the generation above me who were abandoned by their father "I'm going out to get milk" style, and were adopted by a new man when he married their mother.

(also btw shitty biodad loved the taste of licorice alcohol which I think is the nastiest thing any human has ever invented so there really was not a Single Redeemable Thing about him. I'm gonna call him Licorice Biodad)

The older sibling, a boy I'll call... Hamilton, spent his entire life trying to get their biodad to notice him. They all lived in the same town, so there were times where Hamilton would work for him (not properly compensated obviously) or go out of his way to try and visit him. Saddest story I know is this one time the siblings walked across town to visit biodad's apartment, he answered the complex door, said "Ohh so nice to see you! I'll brb" and left them standing there. For hours.

Never came back out lol they had to walk home.

Licorice Biodad only died recently (survived covid somehow and died of old age). Hamilton spent his entire adult life trying to include the man in his life and never reconciled with how awfully he was treated. I never even learned the sad stories from Hamilton; I learned them from his mother and the younger, girl sibling. I'll call her uhhh.... Alexandria

Alexandria by contrast is what you imagine an abandoned child is like. She does not call Licorice Biodad by his name; she calls him 'sperm donor', is ADAMANT her adopted dad is her real, only dad, full of a lot of clear rage about how she was treated.

It probably factors in that every time Hamilton dragged Biodad back into their lives for brief stints of time, it always ended in Alexandria being dogpiled or humiliated in some way.

So, how I engage with adoption narratives is colored a lot by these two members of my family. Clear Sky's writer favoritism is uniquely painful. Thunder reminds me immensely of Hamilton, like it's a story trying to tell me that his destructive impulse was justified.

That the suffering he went through is completely correct because deeeeeep down, Clear Sky, just like Licorice Biodad, was actually a good person who needed the help to show it.

And I just think that's sickening. I think that's a disgusting thing to put in a series for young adults. They don't go far enough by just having Thunder leave his group and fight him at the first battle, because it's immediately undermined by framing Clear Sky as a sad boy worthy of forgiveness, despite his behavior not fundamentally changing.

It undermines my faith that these writers are capable of handling redemption arcs at all, when Clear Sky and Tom are the characters they think are redeemable.

[furiousgoldfish]

Hi, general TW for physical abuse, mental/emotional abuse, sexual abuse, mental health topics (just to be safe). Apologies for the length.

(i sent this twice in case the first one didn't go through, I know sometimes long asks disappear in the system. If you got two please ignore this one, thank you for understanding)

This is.. going to be odd but I'm the person that sent the ask about learning how to be more like a typical human after being semi-feral? you asked a few questions and I can answer them, and maybe get some advice too on it as well. Sorry if this is disjointed, I'm in a bad head space right now but I haven't seen your inbox open in a while so I wanted to answer you while I could.

You asked me about how I survived. And honestly it was mostly because I didn't have an alternative. For physical abuse, I developed a high pain tolerance and don't much have the ability to cry or react to pain. I genuinely don't understand why people describe certain things as being painful, I can handle punches, cuts, etc without reacting.

For starvation my body has stopped reacting to hunger. I haven't felt hunger in many many years, and even then it was a rare occurrence. While it's most likely that I have stunted physical growth because of malnutrition, I can go days without eating without feeling any negative side effects. This is similar with water as well. I can go over a day or two without water and still be okay, actually most of my childhood I drank some water in the morning and then didn't drink anything until 5pm.

As for everything else, I wasn't really allowed to express emotions growing up after my birth parents. While my birth mother would sometimes beat me just to see me cry because she thought it was funny, in the foster home I spent the most time in any reaction from me that wasn't positive or praise was considered problematic. (more about the foster home later)



I'll also add that one of the things that kept me alive, ironically, was the thought of how easy it was to die. The first time I tried killing myself was when I was 5, where I had trained the dog I was living with to lay on a pillow wherever it was put. I'd then lay down and get the dog to lay on that, effectively suffocating me. The dog left after attacking a different kid (who tried killing it) and I was removed after.

My entire childhood I planned my own suicide in all sorts of ways. I've tried stealing and taking pills, I used to keep cups of bleach by my bedside to trick myself into drinking it, I tried laying on streets so cars would crush me, all the way to more elaborate plans I won't share. I don't remember when I started self harming, however I always was sneaky about it because I was always under what was called "arm check" watch. So it stuck mostly to things I could get away with.

I, though I don't know why, have an unnaturally high tolerance to medication, drugs, anaesthetics, and alcohol. I need 3 to 4 times the regular dose of medication for it to impact me, I've never been put under anaesthetics because they've never been legally able to give me a high enough dose to knock me out, and though I've been pressured to drink by adults when I was younger I've never gotten drunk, not even when I was a teen and drank a whole 6 pack.

This has stopped me from overdosing many times, because I've reached the point where I've taken enough medication to actually overdose but didn't. Perhaps this is due to overactive survival instincts, perhaps it's a bizarre quirk. Perhaps my birth parents used to drug me and I gained an early life tolerance. But in summary, only the idea that if I were to die it would be under my own terms was what kept me alive. That and spite, and a fear of abandoning any current foster siblings or pets that I protected from foster siblings that tried killing/maiming them.



To answer you about alters, I'm not entirely sure if I have fully formed alters or not? While my dissociation isn't as bad as it was when I was younger (I'd zone out to the point where I was completely gone for hours. No matter what anyone did I wouldn't react at all) and I eventually learned how to at least move and somewhat speak when it happens.

I do have like a co-host? There's two of me inside my head, and majority of my communication in life has been us talking to each other. However I think it's important to mention that when I was 6 there was a shift? I'm unsure how to word it but this is the closest way I can put it: when I was 6 the original person of the body died and left us two behind.

We had completely different interests, reactions to things, thoughts and dreams and everything. It's to the point that I was moved to another foster home because I was no longer the kid the previous foster parents wanted. And it felt like we had to re-learn how everything worked all over again, because I only knew how to survive.

Every few years that "rebirth" cycle happens again, and the two co-hosts seem to shut off for a bit and then turn back on, but when they turn back on we loose sense of "us" and have to relearn a bunch of things. And not just small things, but big things like school concepts, social rules, what is and isn't acceptable to speak about, how to properly move our body, all of that. Everything feels brighter and more real for a week or two after before it goes back to being dull.

But after that we're still like a new duo living in the head and living in this body. We may have different interests and do differently in school, and I have no clue why it happens. If it is all alters, maybe we're stuck in a perpetual loop of being born, barely surviving, and dying over and over again. It's the only way I can keep track of periods of my life, on which 3 or 4 year period certain iterations of us control the body.

I guess this sort of internal cycle also adds to me not feeling like a real person, because I often loose all the person-ness I've gained and have to read-build my illusion of humanness all over again. What comes naturally to me isn't what a human should be like, and it's unsafe for me to ever be me, at the very least until I can someday find a place safe enough to live.



My main reason for learning how to speak, even though it physically hurts me to do so for any length of time, was so I could learn how to beg people not to kill me. As soon as I sensed adult disappointment I would crouch on the ground and cover my head and beg the adult not to kill me, which got me moved from another foster home after the school called the foster parents too many times asking why I did that.

Eventually I learned that doing that would make people more likely to kill me, so my general perspective of the world my entire life has been "everyone in the world belongs on a ranking system of how much power they have over another person. Teachers and parents have the most, while kids older than you will always have more power. I have less ranking than everyone else around me, so any hurt done to me will always be acceptable. If someone kills me it's well within their ranking to do so." I still struggle to not have this outlook, as I'm used to being treated as more of a pet or novelty than a person.

I don't know if that answers your questions, but that's the best I can do. If there's any more questions you have I can try answering them whenever I find your inbox open again.



Here's the more about foster care, and what I have some questions about. I've mentioned this to someone once, and they said it sounded similar to human trafficking? though I consider it normal.

In the one foster home I stayed at, the one I stayed at the longest, was one where every child that went there had a "ranking". For some extra context: every child there was a legal orphan, all through having birth parents so bad they couldn't stay with them.

The ranking system was based on how "adoptable" the child was. For instance, if you did well in school, didn't have attention put on you, stayed quiet and followed chores and "requests" at the foster home, and basically did what you were told you'd keep a good ranking. This also included not reacting to any trauma you have, not mentioning previous parents (foster or birth), and basically being a child that raised themself. HOWEVER it didn't matter what happened at home, just keeping up appearances and not bothering the foster parents.

While at that foster home over the years I had over 8 foster siblings, though only 5 of them stayed for longer than a few months. When I was 6 the boy already living there tried, and likely succeeded at some point, raping me. The only reason why he was ever caught (he was left home alone with me to babysit, despite him being no where near capable of doing so.) was because a new girl (around 8) had moved in and caught him in the act. She had just come from a place where she'd witnessed rape and freaked out enough that they eventually moved the boy.

Even though she saved me then and at times acted like an older sister, she also was... not happy with her life. She tried killing me multiple times, usually through drowning (both when we were left alone and her telling babysitters that I could swim and putting me in situations where I'd nearly drown). She also tried attack me with a knife a few times, however all the cabinets and drawers in the house were locked so it was rare for her to get anything too sharp.

She also had been planning to murder our foster parents and blame me for it, however someone reported her for trying to get a teacher to have sex with her when she was 13 and got sent away. There was another boy that lived there around my age a few years later that also tried killing me multiple times, usually through strangulation, pushing me onto the road, trying to hang me a few times, attacking me with a knife, and in other ways. He was rather sneaky and had been 2 weeks away from being officially adopted by the foster parents before he tried threatening someone on the school bus.

He had threatened people before and had never actually attacked someone at school, but the bus driver had gotten mad enough that he was suspended. Our foster parents only called him "devil child" and terminated the adoption process and sent him away, despite him doing that and worse to me for years at home.

I had a few other foster siblings similar to that, two other ones that showed sexual interest in me. One simply harassed me while the other raped me nightly for years before eventually being sent away because 3 foster kids at once was "too financially difficult" (even though the foster parents were paid to care for all of us, covering school supplies, clothes, and more. The only clothes I got were the clothes of older foster siblings, sometimes even stuff from previous foster kids I'd never met that was kept in garbage bags in the attic).

There's a lot more I could add, like how in that foster home I was often put to work in their construction business, and how the foster mother was grooming me to have a "special" relationship with her, and more, but first I want to talk about the foster home.



So the ranking system was used not only to basically tell us foster kids whether we'd be able to still stay there/not get abandoned again. It was also used to consider how "considerate" our removal would be. If you had a poor ranking you'd get insulted and lose certain privileges, and if it got bad enough the foster parents would refer to the kid as "devil child" (regardless of age).

A "considerate" removal was where a foster kid would be told they'd be removed a few weeks or months in advance, a bad removal was being kicked out suddenly with all the things you were allowed to keep in garbage bags.

Part of the "considerate" removal (and what the person said sounded like "human trafficking") was the videos we had to make. We would make videos about us doing homework, our likes, us doing chores, stuff like that. A sort of general introduction to the kid, and why anyone watching would want to foster/adopt that kid. These videos would show off all the best qualities of a kid, be burned onto a special CD with the kid's legal name on it, and then played to groups of potential foster/adoptive parents.

The foster parents and the potentials would meet in a room and watch the disk, and whoever was interested would stay behind and ask the foster parents more questions. Whoever was the kid that was staying at the foster home the longest would go and act as a sort of "fact checker" of sorts, because "children are worse at lying".

That, after a few years, ended up being me. I've been in many meetings with groups of adults I don't know and asked about how good my foster siblings were, and sometimes even asked which potential foster parents I liked the most, which would get taken into consideration on which potential foster/adoptive parents my foster sibling(s) would go to.



I'll admit to being selfish and not wanting them to leave, even if they had hurt me. It hurt more having to lie about where I was, but it hurt more seeing adults I mildly recognized come to the door and take my foster siblings away. I always tried to get my foster siblings controlled in some way to avoid them having to be removed, which often made them more mad at me and more likely to lash out, but we'd all been abandoned and I didn't want them to be abandoned again. But perhaps they were luckier, because they got to move out.

Those foster parents of that foster home has a copy of every CD made for all the foster kids, though there's a few that didn't get time to make CDs before they were kicked out. It was all through our local child protective services, but I wasn't allowed any internet presence and few photos of me which means there is a possibility that I was kidnapped (or "misplaced") in the system.

Those foster parents were also... not great. It turns out that the foster mother had had her own biological children removed from her decades ago, and they couldn't have biological children of their own. They wanted a child to replace the one they couldn't have, and were cycling through children until they found one easy enough to control (i remind you children all with birth parents abusive enough that we were all declared legal orphans).

I ended up being controllable enough, though that was also because my social worker abandoned me and I had no outside contacts and a panic-attack inducing fear of adults. Eventually they adopted me and changed my name to one of the foster mother's birth child's names. They forbade me from learning anything about my past OTHER than whatever terrible things my birth parents did.

Unless I was physically working for the foster father (construction business he mostly ignored me. By the time I was 7 I was tiling bathroom floors, and by the time I was 9 I had helped (without ladders or any safety measures) put roofing on roofs). He ignores my physical ailments and always changes the topic whenever I mention anything that isn't "positive" or school, so we lack much of an emotional bond. However he also has never hurt me physically, touched me in any way, or purposefully made me cry. He does ignore everything the foster mother did.



The foster mother had wanted a "special" relationship, and I don't know what else to describe it. Once I knew enough language to speak and make up stories she was telling me about her own trauma and the trauma of her self-help-group/clients. (The foster parents didn't want a disabled kid so I was forced to do home schooling over the summers to "make up" for "my defective brain". They weren't trained and it got ugly many many times because of my brain damage and general inhumanness. Due to the treatment of my birth parents I have brain damage that no one ever checked up on.)

I was raised on stories of rape, abuse, murder, and trauma. The only TV I was ever allowed to watch was construction-work related stuff (so I could better help in the business) or shows with murder. The birth mother would pit the other foster kids against me because I got the "special privilege" of being allowed into the foster mother's office (the only time we ever would see her, other than watching tv._

This "special privilege" included her removing her shirts so I could give her back massages (starting when I was 7), and her telling me about her clients/friends. It also included her sharing her delusions in a religious sort of way, and training me to "be more human".

No matter what i did I could never fully please her, because no matter what I do I will never be a real human. I was never allowed therapy and was the closest thing to therapy I've had was those "Special meetings" with the foster mother. And there the core lessons for me was the following:

No matter what I do, I will ALWAYS be worth less than everyone because I am fundamentally inhuman.

Everyone else is always telling the truth compared to me, because I'm fundamentally incapable of experiencing reality.

Everyone plans out their life before they live it. That means that I planned out every single thing that ever happened in my life. That means I wanted every bad thing that happened, and there was no one to blame but me.

That it's not actually that hard to hide a body, and if I try talking to outsiders I'll learn that first hand (this was partially why the foster mother had me watch so many murder and murder mystery shows. It was a reminder of how she could point out all the mistakes the murderers made, AKA how easy it would be for her to kill me and get away with it).

My life is a mistake, something that should have never happened, and if I talked to other people I'd only spread my curse them to be like me.

Never talk about what happens at home. Or your life.



When I was 17 the foster parents moved me to another place in the country where the nearest towns were over an hours drive away and the nearest town with police was 2+hours away. And where the age of adulthood was older than 18, all so I couldn't legally leave them (they have made far far too many stalking, kidnapping, maiming and more threats because they "love me too much to let me go"). And in general keep me as isolated as they could, a thing they've done since I was placed in their care.

There's so much more I could talk about, but this is already far far too long, so I have a few question I hope you could answer?

First, I'd appreciate any reaction or thoughts you could share, I find it helps give me an outside perspective from someone who doesn't think all this to be normal (and therefore more comfortable than the alternative).

Second, would the CDs and method of foster children getting new foster/adoptive parents be considered similar to human trafficking? I really don't think it is, but that comment the person made has stuck with me, and I wanted to get someone else's opinion (it's... not something I can just go and ask someone)/

Third, is it normal for parents (foster, adoptive or otherwise) to want you to raise yourself? I basically was feeding myself (making meals, packing lunches, etc) since I was 7 and helped my foster siblings do so too. I helped do everyone's laundry since I was 6 (my foster siblings and I were so small that just for one basket all three of us would have to grab on and drag it upstairs lol) and have continued to do mine and the foster parents's laundry since. I never got homework help, never did outside activities that would require the foster parents taking me places, I spent all my time in a forest (sometimes camping in it for weekends until I was old enough to be taken seriously if I complained about living conditions (around 13?). etc

Fourth, is it weird that I was required to do so much construction work? I've helped with the demolition and construction of many houses since I was 7-ish, ranging from taking down walls to plumbing to electrical wiring, creating walls, tiling, carpeting, roofing, making decks, etc etc etc. For a few years my bedroom was also used as a tool storage area, with tons of saws, knives, and tools all over the place. The foster mother was well aware of my suicidal tendencies and she would tell me to do it, put my in situations where I could do it, shame me for being "like that", and only cared if it ruined the foster parents' combined reputation.

Fifth, is it wrong for me to be upset at the idea that the only reason why I've ever been considered a wanted child (or wanted in general) is because how my trauma manifested as internal reactions rather than acting out (aka making me more controllable)? I should be happy that I had so many chances at having a family, even if I never stopped feeling like an orphan, right? (sorry, I've been thinking about this a lot for a while. I can't help but feel mad at the friend I have and school peers in the past because they never had to struggle at just the chance for family. They take it for granted. It's unfair.)



Last, does this fall into continued emotional and/or psychological abuse? Compared to my birth parents and other foster parents they seemed amazing to me, however from reading about other people's families I realize that my foster/adoptive parents sound equal or even worse (NOT to make it a competition, I mean "worse" in the sense that I didn't know those things were considered abusive, NOT that other people "have it easy". pain is pain, and no one likes being hurt.)

For instance, for a few months the foster mother was in the hospital and the foster father went to work and then went to the hospital, only coming home to sleep and make sure there was food for us to eat. I thought they were both at the hospital. We had no baby sitters, even though the oldest kid was 8 and the youngest was 5. Or the time that the foster mother threatened to break down my bedroom door and beat me because I was sick and didn't want to go out somewhere that gave me migraines. Or the many times the foster mother would keep insulting and berating me until I cried, but if I ever said anything I was "defending the fact that all I want to do in life is to suffer". Or how much the have laughed at me for trying to explain to them that I need psychological or physical help (the hardest I've ever seen them laugh is when I told them I was suicidal as a kid. They made jokes about me killing myself and how for months after). Or not being allowed water, or having food withheld, or how the foster mother's delusions have grown to the point that for years I've been denied not just the idea that I'm human, but the idea that I'm a living individual.

According to her I'm an extension of herself without autonomy or personhood, no one but her exists, everyone in the world is an illusion, and far far more. Constantly having to not just listen to multiple hour long rants and having to repeat/speak about how right she because she'd remove my access to water or food or online school (this was during the pandemic, which for me was 3 years straight of being in a new place knowing no one and left with 100% of my interaction being her or the foster father. Those years of psychological mind tricks (I have no clue how to explain it, brainwashing is the closest thing but I don't want to say that in case I'm wrong) definitely not done me good.



(That's also ignoring what happened at other foster homes I've lived at. There was a foster father that was... too "loving" towards young children, another who would lock me in a closet if I was in his eyesight too long, and a foster mother that had gotten frustrated at me for only meowing and hissing as I was had been beaten so many times I was afraid to try learning how to speak so she threw me outside to live with the dog. She'd clean me up and say I was telling stories if I said anything about it through my limited language skills, basically just wanted the money).

Apologies for how long this is, I completely understand if it takes you a long time to answer, or if you choose not to answer at all. Thank you for what you do for everyone, and thank you for taking time to answer everyone's stuff. I hope you have a good day and a good life.

Thank you for answering all of the questions and explaining to me how you survived. I appreciate all of the time you spent explaining it, and everything you said makes sense to me. This is going to be a long response as well, so I'll put it under 'read more'.

The way you survived is something I wouldn't even think possible, your entire body has adapted to the point where all of your senses have turned off, almost permanently, in order for life to still be possible. It is scary to know that this can even happen, and I hope dearly that this doesn't mess up your health (and I want to say, quality of life, but, uh.) I am sorry the lack of nutrition stumped your physical growth.

While your endurance over pain, hunger, and resistance to medicine might seem impressive, it is a sign of how harsh and dangerous your environment was, and how far you had to adapt in order to survive. It's understandable that it's very hard for you to relate to other people, when you're adapted for much different circumstances of life.

It's also incredible you managed to survive at all, and it makes sense you were always look for a way out, it would not have been possible to survive what you did, without hoping that you could end it. It is devastating what you felt compelled to do, but I'm going to try and stay collected to answer this, because I don't feel like you're looking for a display of emotions.

What you describe as co-hosts in your head, that definitely sounds like alters, but I've never heard of a case like yours, where they're shutting off, dying, and then regenerating and re-learning everything, in order to survive. Again, it makes sense with your living circumstances, that it has to be like that, anyone would burn out and shut off in any way possible, and you have to go thru that cylce in order to keep being alive. Still, I'm very sorry that you have to suffer thru this, and struggle to keep any personality you develop. It sounds like your personality forming was shattered into pieces, and it might take a long time to start recovering it, if it's even possible (I'm not smart about this, I really can't say.)

It would make sense that it stops you from feeling like a person though. I doubt there's a lot of people you can relate to, or even talk about this.

I said I would stay collected writing this, but when I read that you learned to speak only to beg people not to kill you, that felt like a physical blow. I had to close my laptop and take a few minutes. That proves unimaginable cruelty and life danger from humans that you had to endure, and your instincts had to over-write everything, even pain, in order to give you a slight chance of survival, and I know that this type of danger erases everything, your personality and sense of self, until there's nothing but pure survival instinct and it takes over.

People who called the foster parents asking why you did that, likely also understood what kind of cruelty trauma this implied.

The ranking system you described, it makes sense. It's not supposed to be like this. In a humane world, we do not have a ranking system, we are, in theory, supposed to all be equal, and none of us is supposed to do harm to another, thats the theory that society's foundations are set on. There are laws protecting it, or at least in theory, there are laws protecting people from the greatest harm. However, what you experienced from society was not like that. A lot of society is not like that. There are people who are intent on building a hierarchy everywhere, and they do feel entitled to do harm to anyone they set on a lower level. It happens in systems of corporations, education, economy, government, family, any system where there are people with authority over other people. And you have experienced the absolute worst of the worst of it. So you had to pick up their rules, the rules of those who need this hierarchy in order to get away with hurting others, who feel entitled to it and constantly need victims. Me and most other people are disgusted by it, and a lot of people want to believe that people in authority would not abuse the authority to cause harm, but by vast majority, they do.

The reason why this hierarchy is so prevalent among children, is that children are always the most vulnerable demographic, being small, defenseless, and in complete power and dependency of others. So they are the ones who get hurt first from the hierarchy system, who are most likely to fall victims – and not only that, but children will mimic whatever behaviour is presented to them, so they will mimic the hierarchy as well, and continue building it among themselves. This also means that the bigger, more aggressive and opportunistic children, will abuse smaller, more scared, more vulnerable, and more sensitive non-violent children. It is not how things are supposed to work, all children are supposed to be protected and safe from abuse. But you have lived the reality of it, and you know how the system works. Anyone who wants to do harm, will pick someone who can't fight back, and who will not be believed, and they can do to this individual whatever they want to, leaving this person with trauma to recover for ages. This isn't right, it's not humane, normal, or compatible with human life, it's an evil hierarchy that not all humans subscribe to. But it is, in the systems that people with power abuse, extremely common. And utterly devastating to live thru, as someone with no power over anyone else.

And I know that the rule 'anyone who kills you is well within their ranking to do so' feels incredibly true (I've felt this in my family as well), but it is not. Nobody's ranking gives them an authority to end your life, or to take it from you. Nothing can grant people the right to do this. What they're doing is getting away with it, when they shouldn't, and they have no right. This is people acting out of their right, out of what is normal, allowed, or humane. I know it doesn't sound real when so, so many people have done this to you, have tried to kill you, and acted like it was the most normal thing imaginable. But all of this was wrong. I'm sorry if what I'm writing right now is painful, I'm not sure how much I can say without making it worse – if something I said feels bad, feel free to disregard it completely.

*

I think the ranking you describe in your foster care is built in an inhumane way. Rewarding children for being extremely convenient, hiding trauma, hiding emotions, obeying and doing work, and punishing them for any actual normal child behaviour, like being openly traumatized, in pain, defiant, acting out, that's not done in child's benefit. Children deserve better than to be suppressed and play pretense in hopes that someone will some day find them worthy of love. It also invites foster parents who only care about 'keeping appearances' and nothing else to benefit from this system. I want to believe there are foster parents who'd want to help a child recover and live a happy life, and not just to have a convenient person who obeys them in the house.

I am so sorry about the amount of sexual violence, murder attempts, and abuse you had suffered in your foster home. I can see you're writing about it as if it's nothing, so I can assume this was very normal and common for you, and not something devastating and life-damaging (you've been thru worse at that point, so it's no surprise that this doesn't come to you as a huge deal). I'm glad you noticed that it is incredibly hypocritical of the foster parents to send that boy away for threatening someone at the bus, when he'd been doing way worse to you for ages – it had only mattered to the parents when someone else was involved, while you were treated as if your experience didn't matter, and he was again, allowed to do anything. This is wrong, and he should have been sent away for hurting you right away.

I can also kind-of, understand that you bonded strongly with your foster siblings, even if they were hurting you or trying to kill you. Your sense of bonding at this point is so strong, because your survival within the community depends on you having someone on your side, at least a little, at least sometimes. And murder attempts are so common for you, it doesn't seem like a deal breaker, what you needed was someone to make life a little more livable, and despite all the harm, your foster siblings still were that for you. So you didn't want them to go away. That is human and normal. We humans will pick abuse and harm over being completely neglected, alone and isolated. I think your reaction was completely understandable.

It is terrifying to find out that foster homes have removals of kids in such brutal and punishing manner. This is cruelty to children, and I didn't know how horrid the reality of it was. I am so sorry that you were forced to live in such a place.  

About the human trafficking claim, the thing is that the ranking system they had for you, and the videos, do sound extremely oppressive and messed up, almost like they were training you to be obedient and then creating a catalogue for potential 'owners' to watch. It doesn't sound like something loving parents would want to do when picking out a kid, they'd want to spend time with the kid, get to know them personally, not hear about 'qualities' and watch a video that proves obedience. Coupled with the fact that after you were adopted, you were forced to work from the age of 7, and construction work as well, makes it sounds extremely like human trafficking to me. I mean, it's not a 100%, because I assume even in these circumstances, it's possible for a kid to get adopted without necessarily being put to work for no wage (which is human trafficking, being put in a position where you're forced to work to survive, often in bad conditions and without money, or benefits, you only get your life), but the situation they set up sounds like it was made specifically to attract traffickers – in this case, people who wanted a child laborer, with a promise that the kid would be extremely well behaved, obedient, and would do any work required of them. While for complete diagnosis of human trafficking, the foster home would have to take money from the parents in order to take the kids – and I don't know if this is the case or not, I'm not knowledgeable about how foster systems work, it's possible that the money exchange is secretly taking place, or that the person who set it up this way did it on purpose, and is financially benefitting from kids being given to those who are most likely to use them for free child labour. So what I think is that it definitely does cause human trafficking. It created the perfect setup for it and it attracts people who can pick out who they want for free labour. If anyone reading this knows more about it, or could give a better analysis of this, please do. It does look like trafficking to me. Not even necessarily because of the CD's, more because of the obedience training and hierarchy, but the CD's sound so cold and alarming and not like something genuine adoptive parents would want to experience.

It's alarming to know that your foster parents changed your name, modifying your entire identity, and forbade you from learning a lot about your past. It sounds like they were set on controlling who you are allowed to be, and who they are in the story (it's probable they were trying to build a story of saving you, from your horrible birth parents, they would surely look good in comparison no matter what they did, given how extremely you were abused in the past.)

The fact that you worked construction, without any safety measures, without protection or any regulations or rewards, proves that this labour was extracted from you in return for your life, which is trafficking. Even your physical illnesses and pains were ignored. This is something that would be brutal even to an adult to endure, and is generally considered a cruel and unsurvivable thing to go thru. I can tell that after your past, a person who doesn't physically hurt you or make you cry is a big improvement and gave you a sense of physical safety, even if you were required to constantly offer labour in return for life, at least it wasn't pain, damage, life threats and murder attempts, so it makes perfect sense that this just felt, a little off! It's extremely common for victims of abuse, to continue going thru life while suffering some lesser amounts of abuse and thinking it was nothing, or it's no big deal, because we're so used to horrid treatment, anything better than the worst seems like a walk in the park, and we're just grateful that things aren't worse for us. So your reaction to it is completely logical. It's only in the context of looking at it from the eyes of a not-abused person, that it looks pretty horrifying, having to work construction as a child, with a person who fails to have any bond with you, while having effectively no caretakers, nobody to emotionally rely on, all while just being grateful things aren't worse.

Your foster mother was parentifying you, meaning she wanted you to take care of her, instead of it being the reverse. It's disturbing that they called your brain 'defective', because it's anything but that, your brain is one of the most brilliant masters of survival, you should be given a lot of credit for going thru all of what you did, and ending up this intelligent, coherent, communicative, clear and understanding. I understand you had to become this way out of necessity and because you had no other choice, but I believe you should still be given credit that you did all that, despite how little you had to work with.

It's also disturbing they only allowed you to watch construction and murder, it's like they wanted your entire world to be reduced to working, and knowing that you can be killed at any minute, it's almost like a threat and a blackmail in order to keep you obedient and working at all times – not that they needed to, you were already in so much terror it was unlikely you would disobey.

The 'special privilege' your mother was claiming to give you was really just parentification, possibly emotional incest (asking massages and expecting you to emotionally cater to her needs). It's very likely that she could be narcissistic. The core lessons she taught you were so dehumanizing and put you in a position where you could only have worth as much as you can be of use to her – which is how narcissist view others. This is not normal or common. You were human the entire time, more human than she was.

You are more than capable of experiencing and effectively describing reality, the way you described it here to me is both eloquent and easy to understand, regardless of how horrifying and dark your reality is. You are good at expressing what happened, and at analyzing it as well. So why would she set rules that would blame you for everything bad that ever happened to you, when you had absolutely no control over it? In order to be able to do more bad things to you, and never be held accountable. She also wanted to keep you silent from ever telling on her (if you talk to others you'll spread the curse) and if you are inconvenient or troublesome we can kill you (it's not hard to hide a body). I feel like you already understand that all of the rules are only self-serving for her, and made so that again, she'd have so much power over you, she could get away with anything.

But in reality, all of those core values are bullshit, and only a cruel, inhumane and evil person could ever impose that on a child (or any other person, really).

I know it can feel devastating that even after all that abuse, you ended up in another threatening, dangerous and exploitative situation, but again, this is pretty common for victims of heavy abuse, that we often find ourselves in some other version of abuse, and usually we go bit by bit until we reach a healthier stage. You can move on from this and find a better environment that will value your humanity in a real way. You were never anything other than human, but you were put in a lot of situations that made it hard for you to feel that, or rather, too painful to feel it. It's easier on the heart to believe you do deserve all this, and that you are to blame, rather than to think that you were a helpless, blameless kid subjected to cruelty for no other reason than someone wanted it, and could get away with it.

To answer your questions:

Even though your life is so dark, I find myself relating to the parts of the story, which scares me, but also gives me hope that you can find a way to freedom, even with a situation this dire. I can tell that you're calm and collected thru it all, which I admire, but it also makes me think you are completely numb and dissociated from the pain you're experiencing, so that you could talk coherently and calmly. However, you're asking for an outside perspective of someone who doesn't think it's all normal – while I don't think it's normal at all, I might not be the best outside perspective, since I'm also viewing it from the lens of abuse. I think true outside perspective would be to be completely and utterly horrified, shocked, devastated and shaken by everything you've been thru, which I do feel as well, but I'm not going to be of much help if I give in to feelings.

The CD's themselves, I don't think are a proof of trafficking, though they are weird, cold, and combined with everything else, do play a part in enabling the trafficking. It is good to ask questions, there are people who know and understand far more about human trafficking, and you should keep asking, and pointing out what feels off to you. You did end up in a situation where two people with absolutely no desire to care for a child, have gotten a child who was sure to obey their orders, work for them for free, take care of one of them emotionally, and endure dehumanizing and threatening environment. This is a form of trafficking – and I should say, trafficking doesn't always feel like you're trafficked. It feels like 'this is just what life is and I should be grateful that it's not worse, because I know worse, I could be dying on the street right now, but if I do this I'll be allowed to live'. And I believe that you are in this situation, and it's not your fault, and there's not much you can do about it immediately.

I don't think its normal for any kind of parents to expect you to raise yourself. That is just severe neglect and parentification (expecting the child to act the role of a parent or a caretaker). You should have had meals and clothes provided to you, you should have had actual care and gentleness and opportunity to talk about what happened to you and what is bothering you. And you should have never been give to people who would mess you up even further, do damage to your brain, threaten you or try to convince you that you're not human. You should have gotten help with homework and everything else. You shouldn't have been put in a situation where you're responsible for the care of very young children when you were 6. You should have been taken places and given happy experiences. You should have been given good living conditions and peace of mind. You should have been told that you're a good child, that you're doing well, and that everyone wants you around and is proud of you.

I'm curious about the forest, because I love the forest, does it feel safe for you to be in the nature? I want to be in the forest forever.

4. And your fourth question about the construction work – no, thats trafficking. Your room should not have been used as a storage either. You were used as a free worker and a servant, and not treated as a child there to be cared for and healed from sever trauma. Also your foster mother pushing you to suicide, thats hateful and gross. It should have never happened.

5. It's not wrong for you to be upset. You were wanted as a free worker because they realized it would be easy to threaten you into obedience, and that you're way too scared of adults to ever disobey, or complain about anything. Your trauma put you in a situation where you would once again, be exploited. It's also normal for you to still feel like an orphan, since none of your parents did any caretaking, or took the role of actually parenting you at any point, they did not build a bond with you, they only kept using you, and you had no idea of knowing that this wasn't normal, or that it was neglect and abuse. It's normal to be mad at other people who take their families for granted, when it's something you sacrificed everything for. It really is not fair.

6. You did well to figure out that your foster parenting experience is not normal, that could not have been easy. Compared to your birth parents, I believe, anyone would seem amazing. Just less violence and less murder threats is amazing compared to constant attempts and constant violence. The only way you could have judged them is by comparison, and your birth parents were off the charts, most cruel and vicious beings imaginable. And I appreciate you pointing out that you're not making a competition out of it, it's true, we're not making a competition, but we can say one type of abuse is more life threatening than the other, and that different abuse brings out different kinds of feelings and consequences, and that some types of sever abuse, make other types seem invisible, harmless, no big deal, or even amazing.

What you describe about your mother saying 'all you want to do in life is suffer' and laughing at you for needing psychological and physical help, even when you're suicidal, is once again, hateful and cruel behaviour, and nobody should have done this to you. Accusing you of 'wanting your suffering' is insane. Laughing at a suicidal kid is inhumane. That is not funny, to normal humans it's devastating.

Your mother treating you as an extension of herself sounds a lot like she's trying to achieve enmeshment and engulfed relationship, like what narcissistic mothers do, because she wants you to be bonded to her, but in a way that you care for her, while she doesn't care for you. This isn't fair, and it's not normal. You are not an extension of anyone, you are yourself, and you have the right to do things that benefit you, and only you, and it does not make you selfish. You also have the right to refuse the things that hurt you, and everyone should respect that. Removing access from food, water or online school, is violation of your human rights, and not a punishment that is normal, or legal to use. I am so sorry you were alone with them and brainwashed for so long. I feel that you are so incredibly intelligent that you will see thru it, and I'm sure you're right to say it. Being isolated with people who see nothing human in you, would brainwash anyone.

Again, I am so sorry for what everyone have put you thru, they had no right. The other events you're describing are also horrifying and sound too painful to bear. You were treated worse than people treat animals, and they could have not do any of this to you, and they would have been just fine. It was their choices to do this.

Thank you for reaching out and for answering my questions, I knew it was selfish of me to ask, but I'm glad you got back to me and responded. I hope my answer helps you a bit, and you can keep talking to me if you want to. I'll try to open my inbox sooner this time.

[frozenmoonshine]

A serious post ahead:

I know it's become super trendy to hate on Takeomi, and I'm guilty of joining the trend myself, after seeing the info in CB#4, but!

It got me thinking about his character, and just how damn unfair Wakui was towards him. He introduced Takeomi with all the hype possible (cocky, sarcastic chainsmoker who was Shinichiro's right hand man, the Vice-Commander of the OG Black Dragon, the so-called "God of War", etc), and signaled very clearly that he's going to be super important to the story (the "3 mysterious Akashi siblings", in Senju's own words), only to completely abandon him in the last arc!

And before you ask, no, I am not defending him in any way, and I am even less of his apologist. This is not about the character's likeability and morality, but about the way he is written.

However, I'm not a (professional) writer, and I can't really talk much about character development, plot resolution, etc. 'cause I don't wanna talk out of my ass about something I'm not competent enough to talk about, but I do think it's more than clear that Wakui did him dirty.

He made us squint at Takeomi, like: "Is he a good guy, is he a bad guy, what is his deal, really?" And it was interesting, it made us think. And then we saw a tiny bit of his backstory, he became slightly more relatable, we realized he isn't inherently evil, but... then there came the chapter 241 and we saw what a shitty brother he was to Haru. And yet again, we were left wondering if Takeomi is someone to hate or not.

But that was it, we were left there, hanging on the cliff of his character arc that never happened for real. We never got to see what had really happened between him and Haruchiyo, and most importantly - why it happened. We can all agree that Takeomi is a horrible big brother, it's just a fact. But I also have a strong impression that there was supposed to be an explanation for his attitude towards Haru. Just like how Taiju was abusive to Hakkai and Yuzuha because he wanted them to become "strong", maybe Takeomi had his own similarly warped idea to make Haruchiyo "toughen up" by being unreasonably harsh and strict towards him.

It is one of my greatest disappointments in the manga, that Takeomi as a character was never expanded on. I'm pretty sure he'd have become one of the most relatable and compelling, if not likeable, characters. We see him being flawed, very flawed, and with very real, mundane flaws, that all of us have to some extent. He's suffering from low self esteem, he's trying to make a name/reputation for himself, he's struggling with the responsibility of parenting two kids who are not his kids but siblings, and at such a young age! If you have younger siblings, you most likely know from personal experience how wrong it is to push older children in the family to parent the younger ones, instead of parents parenting all of them!

And yeah, we could argue now that the Mitsuya were in a very similar situation, but Takashi turned out just fine.

First of all, in real life, every person is an individual, and every person's experience is different, and no family circumstances are the same. And since TR depicts family issues, social issues, and (inter)personal issues in an exceptionally realistic manner (main reason why I love it so much!), same can be said for the Akashi and the Mitsuya. Mama Mitsuya is a single mother, but she seems to be as present in her kids' lives as possible, while working her ass off to provide for them. She seems to be a good parent, and therefore the Mitsuya family is not toxic. They all love and support each other.

And to retrace to the abovementioned hypothesis that "Takashi turned out just fine" - did he, really?! He's in a delinquent biker gang, he ran away from home at least once because he couldn't deal with the pressure, he drew (illegall) graffitti, he got a temple tattoo, spent time in a brothel playing poker... His character is very understated and lowkey, so we don't exactly tend to think of him in that light, but when we look at the facts... he's not as much of an angel as he may seem.

Back to the analysis of Takeomi, his parents are not present in his and his siblings' lives. We never got a single hint about what happened with their mother, and all we know about their father is that he left, so the three of them were brought up by their grandma. And therefore, Takeomi had to shoulder the role of the "father". I wish we got to see at least a glimpse of his perspective on that. A glimpse of his own relationship with his parents. With his grandmother. Or why Shinichiro gave him the nickname 'Rainbringer'. Why he was so obsessed with money and "success", why he felt the need to be famous. Why he pushed Haruchiyo to his limits. So damn many unanswered questions, and it's just one single character! Wakui still owes us countless answers, and I will totally not be bitter about it forever!

Just make Tokyo Revengers 2 and answer everything properly, damn it!

[greengoddesssmoothie]

I'm gonna say something that might be a little...idk, I don't think it's going to be a very popular take in the fandom. But I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

I've seen some people get pretty steamed about the idea that Rise Raph or even 03 Leo might be interpreted as having been parentified. And I guess, as an eldest child who was parentified, I wanted to give my two cents and say I do think both of those characters in their respective iterations were parentified. Is it possible I'm projecting and too close to the issue to be objective? Absolutely!! So please take what I have to say with a grain of salt, these are just my thoughts/opinions/headcanons.

I think it's really important to point out that parentifcation doesn't have to mean a child takes care of their parent, but can refer to a child taking on adult roles, such as parenting their siblings. When I talk about Rise Raph and 03 Leo being parentified, I'm specifically talking about the way they interact with their siblings; I think them being the leader of their respective teams, and therefore being responsible for their wellness and safety and whether or not they survive just automatically does that to a turtle (how can you view yourself as a kid when you're taking responsibility for keeping your family alive??).

Before ya'll start booing me, please understand that this doesn't automatically mean I think 03 or Rise Splinter was a bad or abusive parent. 03 Leo became parentified due to circumstance and partially because of his personality traits, and this goes for Rise Raph as well.

I've seen people get upset about the idea that Rise Raph was parentified because of the implication this was due to Rise Splinter being neglectful when in actuality, he's a complex character struggling with mental illness. I agree wholeheartedly that Rise Splinter adores his sons and is struggling with trauma and depression. As a parentified, eldest child with a mentally ill parent, I would also argue Splinter's mental illness was probably part of why Rise Raph felt the need to step up. Again, that doesn't mean Splinter wasn't a loving, caring father who tried his best, and it certainly doesn't mean he was abusive.

I had similar experiences with my mom; she loves her kids so much, but untreated mental illness and some other circumstantial things made it difficult for her to constantly show up for us when I was a kid. My siblings and I were homeschooled, so we were with her 24/7, just like the Rise boys were with Splinter. I feel this is important to acknowledge because I can say from experience that means Splinter literally NEVER got any sort of space to take care of himself and be depressed without his sons seeing that. My personality traits and birth order absolutely played a role, as well. My closest sibling is only 13 months younger than me, so like Rise Raph, I never had the experience of being an only child. I think that ALSO contributed to both Rise Raph and 03 Leo taking their perceived duties as the eldest sibling to the extreme, because they never experienced a time in their lives when they weren't the oldest. For me at least, never being an only child or the youngest made it more difficult for me to realize I was taking on responsibilities that weren't age-appropriate.

I just...idk, a kid doesn't fill a role unless there's a role to be filled. Family dynamics are fucking complicated, even without the added hurdle of being mutants living in the sewers. Part of why I love TMNT so much is because of the complex family dynamics in all iterations.

TL;DR: Splinter trying his damndest to be a good father (and succeeding) and 03 Leo and Rise Raph being parentified can both be true.

[seyaryminamoto]

I liked your entry for the last sokkla saturday of the year. Azula and Zuko’s relationship is very interesting and I also don’t like how people try to simplify it. There’s so much resentment between them and I don’t think they could ever get over it completely. Zuko has every reason to be wary of his sister. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about her deep down. It would be hard for him to forgive her, but I think he would try anyway. Aang said that forgiveness is not easy, didn’t he?

I'm glad you enjoyed that entry, it flowed out of me quite smoothly, so it's one of my favorite stories this year even if it went as dark as it did. I definitely agree that Zuko and Azula being written as getting along seamlessly is something that often feels like a headscratcher to me, even in my most positive takes on their relationship there's always an edge, because their personalities feel inherently conflictive to me. Perfect cordiality sounds unlikely for those two, even in the best of circumstances.

But there's a few things you've said that are a little counterintuitive for me precisely because of the content of this entry x'D

You see... both Azula and Zuko had a lot less agency and control over their circumstances than they think they did (and than they think the other did, too). The toxicity of the Royal Family isn't something that happened overnight, there's very strong indications that Iroh and Ozai had a relationship that was very similar to Azula and Zuko's, with Iroh being the gifted and favored older sibling while Ozai was the sidelined younger one who went on a voyage to find the Avatar in an attempt to prove his worth to his father. They, in turn, were shaped by Azulon, whose personal life is a much bigger mystery but what needs to be said is that, in canon, Azulon was raised by the instigator of the Fire Nation's genocidal war. All of which is enough context to know that this is not a healthy family (which is true to basically every monarchy, to be fair), and that there's surely been many iterations of a cycle of abuse and toxicity across even more generations than the ones we know factually about.

Hence, my point when I say that neither Zuko nor Azula have that much control over the circumstances is the following: Zuko has plenty of things to hold against Azula... as does Azula against him. Try to make a list of all the reasons why you believe Zuko rightfully resents Azula... I assure you, there will be an equivalent list on Azula's side to resent Zuko, too. And that's the core of the problem in this cycle: clinging to the belief that ONE of them harmed the other and needs to apologize, make amends and earn forgiveness, basically spurs the one being blamed to resent the other one further. Because "why am I the one who has to apologize, when they did *insert all the elements of either sibling crime list here* to me?"

A lot of the things Azula and Zuko resent each other over, particularly in the show, are things that are not in either one's power. Azula resents Zuko for monopolizing Ursa's attention? It wasn't Zuko's responsibility that Ursa neglected her daughter. Zuko resents Azula for monopolizing Ozai's attention? It wasn't Azula's responsibility that Ozai neglected his son. Azula resents Zuko because Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her for him? That's not something Zuko instigated or spurred them to do, Mai and Ty Lee made that choice freely and Azula blames him for it (which specifically happens because Mai makes sure that Azula blames her brother upon saying her "I love him more than I fear you" line). Zuko resents Azula because Azula hunted him down for months, fought him violently on most occasions when they crossed paths, and tried to kill him once her breakdown was beginning? Yeah... this happens to be the same guy who spent more than half the show hunting down Aang with full awareness that, if he succeeded, Aang would either be Ozai's captive, or be outright murdered by Ozai, and the awareness of what his father would do to an innocent child is never shown to bother him. So one would think he'd be able to see that, while Azula is in a slightly less painful position than him, she's still forced to do Ozai's bidding at all costs. She didn't embark on this mission of her own volition or pleaded to be sent on it: Ozai sends her. Ozai raised her for the sake of becoming his perfect tool. Ozai, ultimately, is the one making Azula act as she does, having trained her into giving him her perfect obedience in exchange for his approval.

In short: neither Zuko nor Azula have as much agency and power in their circumstances as they think they do. They DO have those things in terms of how they go about fulfilling their respective missions, how they act while on the road, what they do with the people they have at their mercy, and so on. But Azula DOESN'T have control over the orders Ozai gives Azula. Zuko DOESN'T have control over how Mai and Ty Lee decide to respond to a given situation. They didn't have control over what either of their parents decided to do when raising them.

So, when we're told one of these characters needs to forgive the other... the question of why this character, and why not the other character, always comes to mind. Conversely, Azula needs to forgive Zuko? There's certainly things in the comics that I would LOVE to see Zuko apologize for. Just so, Zuko in the comics would be in his full rights to expect apologies from Azula, particularly over the events of S&S, where Azula is allegedly on her right mind and still commiting major crimes of terrorism against their nation. But see, if we just go on and on... the cycle never ends. It just doesn't stop. If we say only one of them is owed an apology, then it basically means we're holding the other character 100% responsible for a lot of things that objectively weren't their doing, and that the one character blames them for, quite unfairly. Validating Zuko's potential belief that Azula has purposefully harmed him and that he's owed an apology for all of it means invalidating the entire context of Azula's actions. Just so, validating Azula's potential belief that Zuko harmed her would do the same thing for him.

Hence, this is a cycle. As any cycle, left to run its course, it will never stop. And while mutual forgiveness would be my ideal outcome... I don't think it's going to happen without one very specific thing:

Mutual understanding.

True empathy is the answer to what Zuko and Azula need in order to reach a place of stability in their relationship. Zuko needs to understand what Azula went through in order to ever understand why she resents him the way she does. Azula needs to understand Zuko's hardships as well, in order to understand why he resents her the way he does. In both cases, the introspection would be certain to yield important results: maybe Zuko, to this day, feels like Azula took advantage of Ozai's favoritism. But once he looks at things from her point of view and realizes how sidelined she was by literally every other adult in her life, maybe Zuko would conclude that he, too, would have acted exactly as Azula did, had they been in opposite situations. On top of that, after Ozai is imprisoned and powerless, after Zuko has realized his father has done absolutely grueling and terrible things, Zuko should reasonably conclude that Ozai's favoritism of Azula was HARMFUL, ACTIVELY. It wasn't as direct and blunt as a burn to the face, no, but it would have done horrors to Azula's psyche and turned her into whatever Ozai wanted her to be. Hence, would he still resent her for taking up Ozai's attention when he finally realizes that Ozai's attention wasn't worth having in the first place?

Likewise, Azula would have to put herself in Zuko's shoes. His position of being constantly overlooked because someone else was always better than him would have surely driven her up the wall if she had experienced it in the flesh. She would have to come to terms with why Zuko feels he was not allowed to actually reach his full potential early on because every resource Ozai had at his disposal was devoted to Azula. She would have to also understand why Iroh and Ursa felt the need to shelter Zuko, even if I definitely think they're not blameless in not doing the same for Azula. Yet, I do think Azula could come to see why those two decided to devote themselves to Zuko, and how it was Ozai's actions that drove them to do so. It doesn't mean they couldn't have done better with her, but I don't think Azula would be incapable of recognizing that Zuko needed someone to help him stay afloat or he'd have been crushed by expectations and demands he could never satisfy, not out of serious incompetence, but because he was never given true opportunities she was given, and while there's no telling if he could have made as much from those opportunities as Azula did, I do think it's entirely logical for Azula to recognize common ground between them here... because most people don't give her a chance to prove she can be better than they assume she is, either. The persistent belief that she can't change, can't grow, can't do better... is exactly what Zuko was burdened with all his childhood.

... All this is to say...

I really don't think Zuko's willingness to forgive Azula was the crux of the story I wrote. The story itself was geared towards showing how Zuko's refusal to see Azula as anything but a monster has shaped him into a much darker person than he's willing to recognize he has become. It's a manner of trope, I suppose, for someone to be so scared and so mortified by a certain threat that they end up becoming soooo much worse than the threat itself in order to destroy it: that's how I was writing Zuko in this story. I wanted it to feel like he was still the child who cried about having nightmares where his sister was burning his toys... because he's basically acting like that, still. He's an adult who thinks his younger sister is constantly out to get him, no matter what the situation may be, and he can't lower his guard, ever.

His sister, living on the road, traversing Ba Sing Se sewers, taking on deadly missions that have resulted in countless severe injuries, in which she's constantly fighting to survive and to make sure her partner survives too. His sister, who hasn't had a luxurious Fire Nation Palace life in around 15 years by the time the story is wrapping up. His sister, who goes on a suicidal attempt to make amends for her past wrongdoings, under orders of her superiors, all be it to set her partner free from being bound to her forever, as well as to finally "do enough" to make up for everything she did wrong when she was a teenager.

This is the sister Zuko is still seeing as a monster.

In context, you'd say, of course he sees her that way because he doesn't know about all her choices and missions in detail, hence why Aang has to tell him about them directly. But the reason why Zuko DOESN'T know about any of this is because he's the one actively pushing against her and trying to take her as his prisoner at all costs. The growth Azula could have done in 15 years is meaningless to him... because he's still a frightened boy. He's an adult, yes, but when it comes to Azula, he continues to act like the frightened boy having nightmares about his sister that I mentioned above. That was the purpose of his panicked tirades when he witnesses her wedding to Sokka: even at that point, when he sees her doing no harm, being loved, finding peace somewhere faaaar away from him, his kneejerk reaction is to take her down at once (fortunately, he didn't act on it that time :'D).

And that's the thing about the whole forgiveness concept going on here: if we truly believe Zuko is in a position where he can choose whether or not to forgive Azula for her crimes and the terrible things she did to him, then it means that, if Zuko chooses NOT to forgive her, Zuko spends the rest of his life being that frightened boy I've mentioned so far. He lives in luxury and has all the glory Azula could have ever hoped for in her youth, he's the great leader of the Fire Nation, has an army at his disposal, all the respect from so many important leaders... and yet he becomes that frightened boy as soon as Azula is involved. None of his great achievements amount to anything because of how pathologically scared he is of his own sibling.

Is it an exaggeration on my part to write him and depict him that way? Probably. But, then again... this is effectively how a lot of people seem to think Zuko should act. They say so proudly. They don't even try to pretend that's not their opinion, there's even some who say Zuko has to EXECUTE his sister, no less. So I simply took that opinion, expanded it and created a story around it. And yep, this is a story built on the belief that Zuko is entitled not to forgive Azula regardless of her choices... which results in Zuko evolving into a person who has done absolutely nothing to deserve being forgiven by his sister.

Let's see: why would Azula want to forgive a brother who was going to lock her in an asylum she never wanted to return to, or in prison, without her bending? What reason does Azula have to forgive someone who started a manhunt for her, and because of whom she has to live under false identities, where her only "safe" harbor is the White Lotus? She and Sokka live as nomads, wandering the world, saving lives as best they can, isolated from everything they know on the most part... and they could do all that by choice too, if they wanted to. But in this case, they have no choice, and why? Because of Zuko's choices. Because of Zuko's manhunt. This is all they can do to survive because, if Azula is ever found by Zuko's troops, she's going to be dragged back to the Fire Nation and her sentence will be sure to be carried out at once (or, if captured by the Earth Kingdom, who do want her dead, she'll be executed for sure).

In a story with a Zuko like this one... why are we still talking about Zuko's forgiveness of his sister, when he's the one constantly and actively harming his sister over the course of the seven-eight years across which this story takes place? Shouldn't Zuko feel more remorse than her at this point? Hasn't Azula done MORE to fix their broken world while being isolated from her nation than Zuko did during his own banishment? She's actively saving people's lives under the White Lotus's orders, fighting the fights they direct her to, using her cleverness, strength and prowess for better purposes now... in short, she has redeemed herself without Zuko's involvement whatsoever. She has become a much better person than he ever knew she could be. What is there for him to forgive when his choices are wronging her so much more violently than she ever did him, especially in this setting?

The fandom's mentality about Zuko's forgiveness of Azula is why this story spawned:

To be blunt, I don't need Azula to be forgiven by Zuko.

I don't need Zuko to be forgiven by Azula.

I want the two of them to become better people, outright.

Often, that path leads them to being better siblings to each other. In this particular story, Zuko simply became worse while Azula became better, and their paths led them away from each other, potentially forever.

And while I wouldn't exactly advocate for Zuko and Azula to have nothing to do with each other again, at the same time, I don't see what Azula needs to do to earn forgiveness from someone who has treated her as Zuko has in this setting. She has become better by her own volition, to help fix a world she once helped break. Her actions speak loudly, and she's not taking upon doing all this just as some penitence to earn Zuko's goodwill: she's doing it out of having no choice, at first, eventually because she grows to believe this is the one way for her to live her life and prove herself worthy of the love that's growing between her and Sokka.

When your good actions and choices fundamentally come from a place of earning a reward for good behavior, it's very difficult for me to see it as anything other than selfishness, no matter how nice that choice may be. This is why I wrote Azula's journey as I did in this story, and why the concept of Zuko forgiving her feels out of place: everything she did as a White Lotus agent has been more than enough to prove she has changed, far more than Zuko did to earn his own forgiveness. In her case, she didn't come begging and pleading to be accepted... she found a kindred spirit who gave her a chance, and upon doing so, they became partners who worked together to continue healing a broken world. And upon reaching the end of the story... Azula is 100% ready to live her life without needing to worry about Zuko anymore. She's no longer going to be Fire Nation, she's completely turned away from her people, her bond with them is as good as dead after all those years of feeling that Zuko has isolated her away from that place, and while she could rightfully resent him for that, at the point at which the story is drawing to a cloes, all Azula wants is to live a peaceful life with the man she loves.

Thus, the question of "is she forgivable?" feels out of place after all this. The fact that Zuko feels entitled to put Azula through more hardships just so he, personally, can be 100% sure that she's good now and that she won't hurt him, says far worse things about him than it does about her, at this point. With everything Aang and Hakoda tell him, and Zuko's own final interaction with Azula... you get to see Zuko is starting to open his eyes to reality. He apologizes because he finally understands what his unwillingness to forgive has put Azula through... which then results in Azula extending an olive branch towards him, in turn, upon telling him he can come see her again if he wants to. Before the story begins, as you may recall, Azula turned herself in, she was expected to face trial and be sentenced for the things she did as the Kemurikage and all that nonsense. Her willingness to defer to Zuko's power was, in itself, a concession on her part... and there was no concession on Zuko's. His sentence was deliberately merciless out of fear. And that's why Azula has to run. That's why Azula has to put as much distance and as many shields as she can in order to survive Zuko's manhunt.

Once the story is ending, things are different precisely because Zuko concedes. Because he finally accepts that he's in no position to deny his sister her happiness, which she built without him, in which he has no part to play. This isn't about him. Her choices aren't about him. Her life isn't just about ruining his, unlike what a lot of what his more toxic fans seem to believe. And it's precisely when Zuko realizes that's the case that he finally starts to treat his sister as his sibling for the first time in forever. Because, instead of demanding that she repents and offers reparations for everything hurtful she ever did to him, or considering her too far gone for that... Zuko finally looks inwards and acknowledges his own mistakes. Just as Azula accepted her wrongdoings upon turning herself in before the story begins, Zuko finally accepted he was wrong to hunt her as he did.

Hence... mutual understanding leading into mutual forgiveness. Azula, after everything Zuko puts her through, could very well decide not to concede and tell her brother to get lost and never return to her new home: instead, she tells him to come by again if he wants to. He asks if he can bring his daughter, and Azula agrees with that idea. No, of course it's not easy for either of them, as that super tense and stiff dialogue should reveal... but they're making an effort to mend fences, even if it's not as successful as it could be if the bad blood between them hadn't reached the heights it did.

ANYWAY.

That was a very long explanation (as usual on my part), and why I just don't think this subject tends to be handled with the nuance it deserves. The more we press on that Zuko shouldn't forgive his sister, or that he's justified in not doing so, the more we encourage the idea that Zuko should spend the rest of his life fearing and hating her. Why would any Zuko fan hope that he spends all his life becoming a paranoid mess over his sibling's choices? Why not hope he finds peace and happiness, whether his sister is involved directly in it or not? A cordial, distant relationship could be possible if nothing else is, provided someone wants their bond to be healed. If, of course, the person actually THRIVES in the toxicity and wants to enjoy the messed up dynamics of two siblings constantly trying to kill each other... yeeeeeah that's not my problem and I'd happily keep that kind of story concept and headcanon very far away from me. But if we're actually talking about wanting Azula to redeem herself, and for Zuko and Azula's relationship to heal, even if we both agree that it would never become as wholesome as, say, Sokka and Katara on their best days, I don't think that the discussion should be about whether Zuko is entitled to resent Azula forever or not. He can very well do that if he wants to: but that means stopping Zuko from ever growing out of his many issues and the countless burdens that are dragging him down and keeping him from finding actual peace.

It's worth noting too, again, that Azula is not Ozai. The true culprit of the direct abuse both Azula and Zuko suffered is Ozai. He's the one with power over both siblings in their childhood and teenage years up until Zuko becomes Fire Lord. He's the one who actively poisoned their bond until it festered into the mess it currently is in canon. When we talk about Zuko's presumed forgiveness of Azula being a difficult thing... we're basically holding HER responsible for the damage Ozai's actions had on BOTH his children. This doesn't mean Zuko's feelings about Azula are 100% invalid... but it means that, if Zuko goes his whole life pretending Azula had more agency and power over their circumstances than she actually did, he's never going to understand her. And that is the feeling that ends up being fostered when we talk about how Zuko would be justified to never forgive his sister. Ultimately, it's only going to be harmful for Zuko to close the door on any potential reconciliation with her... and I really don't know how anyone who cares about his character would advocate that he should spend the rest of his life blindly resenting his sister and never growing out of being the frightened boy who allows his nightmares to determine how he interprets his reality.

[imanalbertross]

It's Unpopular Opinion Time with Uncle Al!

TTS Proshipping

I'ma gonna make some people mad, but here I go.

Most of the optional ships I have seen/read/heard of for Varian that are not Hugo or maybe Nuru, though to me she reads incredibly lesbian, are really huge proships. I am, of course, talking about cannon characters (You wanna ship him with an OC, go ahead. I don't have to approve but I can remember being young and wishing I had an OC to give my favorite boy-things). For the most part, the characters that are available to him are of a significant age-gap and power-gap, and that's not a good thing.

I feel like it needs to be remembered that so many of these women/men being shipped with him (though in the lists I've seen that don't include Hugo, the only guy they really offer is Eugene, so still a huge proship) are adults. Which is point number 1. No matter who that person is- Cassandra, Rapunzel, Eugene, whoever- going after the 14 year old, even after a gap of time to allow him to age, would be considered grooming.

Why? Well, largely because of just the three I named, they met him as a child (yes, fourteen year olds still count as children in the eyes of the law) and he had sort of a hero-worship attitude for them at first. He had a full on crush on Cass, respected Raps for being a princess and also the fact that she really thinks his alchemy is cool- which seems to be rare in his world-, and Eugene was probably his first gay crush. That puts them in a position to use that respect he has for them in their favor to gain his interest.

So, Cassarian/Cassandrian has a woman literally almost ten years older than him coming back and getting into a relationship with a person she knows had a crush on her when he was a child makes dating him in the future abusive. The reason for this is because she is leveraging this information to get a relationship based on a child’s feelings, which is super creepy. If this was a male YouTuber and a fan, you wouldn’t be shipping this.

Rapunzel is a princess, and knew she was when she met him, so she gets the Cass rundown plus the fact that the power balance between them is insane. Let not even mention the fact that those two are so high in the sibling vibes category that it makes it an extra step of creepy. And is anyone actually shipping Eugene with him? I kind of feel like that’s a fake ship that angry people use as an example of why we shouldn’t have gays in kids’ shows.

The second point is that most of the other characters that end up on those lists are either small children- like 10-12, and he’s 14-16. I don’t know if you know this, but Varian is kind of an exception to the rule, when it comes to 16 year olds hanging out with younger kids. He’s still learning to friend, which is how he ends up with such a diverse group of friends.

I’ve seen Vex in these lists, and she barely wanted anything to do with the main group, and Varian’s villain schtick wasn’t who he really was. We all have a villain arc as people, and seldom is it the person we long to be or would be on purpose if given the choice. Usually, like Varian, we end up pretty ashamed of that part of our lives. But the characters listed that don’t know him probably wouldn’t want that kind of a relationship with him, nor would they be likely to hold similar desires and ideals- this kind of thing can be a deal breaker in relationships.

This said, we also kind of need to talk about leaving Hugo off the list. Is this because he’s from a program that was denied by Disney? Possibly, but it needs to be said. If you want to post about partners for Varian, you need to state “out of the canon characters” because, honey, there are so many non-canon choices. Hugo is just the one that the writers chose. Which is kind of important too, since they built him. They know Varian better than we do.

Being anti about gay ships but fine with straight proships is a rant for another day. But I got to a point with Cassarian that I just needed to point out the genuine nope surrounding it.

[shivvy-roy]

what are your thoughts on the paralells/anti-parallels between the gallagher’s and the roy’s like two families growing up under an abusive father and absentee mother but at the opposite ends of the class spectrum i’ve never seen anyone compare the two families but I’ve always kinda thought about the succession and shameless comparison idk why it’s always fascinated me

i am SO GLAD you asked me this question!!

both succession and shameless are, at their core, shows about how abusive parenting impacts children, but at wildly different income brackets, so in that way it's really interesting to draw parallels between similar characters from the shows and see how class further influences what happens as a result of a person's emotional trauma.

a really good example is kendall vs lip

both are second-oldest children who, along with the eldest sibling, act as pseudo-parents to the younger kids. kendall starts off the show established as an addict, whereas lip develops an alcohol addiction in later seasons. kendall, however, continues to fail upward despite his addiction, losing at an attempt to destroy his father but then bouncing back an episode later. there are bottomless pits of money dedicated to his recovery and he half-manages to parlay his status as an addict into a party boy persona. he literally kills a waiter as an effect of his desire to do drugs and faces zero consequence. lip, on the other hand, hits rock bottom as a result of his addiction, being expelled from college and ending up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning, where he is mainly concerned about being able to afford the bill, which is a concern kendall would never have had.

then there's also connor vs fiona

since we come into succession with all the roy kids as adults, we don't get to see connor as pseudo parent in the same way fiona was in shameless, where she acts as a mother to her siblings to the extent of feeding and clothing them. we do however see glimpses of the relationship between connor and his siblings as well as references to past events (like taking them on a camping trip or roman and connor fishing in montana) that imply that connor stepped in as a dad for much of his siblings' childhoods. then again, all connor ever had to do was provide emotional support, since the support system wasn't going anywhere. fiona, as her siblings' mom, has to drop out of high school (i believe the show says at age 14) to start working full time, and takes on sexually degrading jobs to earn enough money to survive.

both connor and fiona also lash out at their siblings when their hard work as pseudo-parent is not acknowledged or is mocked (like connor at kendall's birthday party or fiona like 39258x times through the series (shes right tho)) because they feel like they are being taken for granted.

the ways in which logan and frank abuse their children have some similarities and differences!

both of them use the withholding of affection as a means to get their children to do their bidding. both also use them as a means to an end to getting money- frank literally robbing his children, and logan using his children as props to close multi-billion dollar business deals.

frank also relies on his children to keep him alive to a certain extent, whereas logan makes it a point to demonstrate to his children how little he needs them.

then there is also a similarity between caroline & roman and monica & ian- absentee mothers who have a favorite child whom they lavish affection on and so are faithfully defended by that child even when other siblings voice their very legitimate complaints. it also just so happens that both roman and ian struggle with their sexuality in various ways.

to a lesser degree i also see similarity between shiv and debbie in that they are both young(er) women desperately trying to prove themselves to their brothers- though, of course, debbie does this by going through with a teenage pregnancy that everyone tells her to abort to prove she can function as a mother, and shiv does this by trying to outwit them into becoming ceo of a media conglomerate

[the-vodka-came-diluted]

I don't know how many people still look at this account, but I thought I would give a bit of a life update :]

Im turning 21 in June and i'm doing much better than I was when I was on here, I'm still disordered and anxious, but less than I was. I ended up going to counselling summer last year 2 days before my birthday for my mental health as my anxiety was getting to the point where I had started developing agoraphobia, through that I ended up on Sertraline for the anxiety and depression as I was also still incredibly suicidal.

Things have been going a lot better since then, R (previously E), someone I had posted about alot, and I are best friends still, I accepted through counselling and improving myself that what I felt for him was actually infatuation caused by my mental health and a need to feel loved, they've done a lot of self improvement as well, and addressed the things they said to me, I forgave him a long time ago and things have settled now, sometimes when you put two mentally ill ND queers in a close friendship from a young age, shit gets messy and then you mature and become best friends who can trust eachother again.

Someone else I posted about, F who was my ex at the time, came back into my life and I realised she was the only person I had genuinely ever felt a romantic connection to, which sounds silly when you read everything I said about R before, but as I said, mental illness is wild lmao I was convinced I had to end up with R or I would be alone, he was the only other openly lesbian/queer person I knew from the age of 12 with similar experiences to me. F came back into my life and things have been going so much better since then, we spent over a year talking again and eventually confessed to eachother, she helped me leave my abusive mums house and we currently live together with our 2 cats and her emotional support dog, I love her more than I can express on here, I never thought I would get to be in a relationship like this where things are so calm and and loving, instead of blowing up at eachother over things, we sit down and talk about why something has upset us and how we can change it in the future, she's my whole world and even though it's not even a year being together again, I'd gladly spend the rest of my life with her 💜

As for things with my mum, she has just recently gotten out of a toxic relationship, things blew up a while back before I left, she got violent and police were called, so I left with a lot of encouragement from F and others. A lot of the cause of her becoming even more shitty than she already was, was her at the time new bf, she was drinking every day with him, abandoning my younger siblings and leaving them to me days at a time to drink with him, being homophobic, and was getting more and more physical and while she has hit me before, she hit me and my brother for being gay, which honestly hurt so much more than any punch or slap or shove she had thrown before. She was also doing a lot of shit to me mentally still that I had just had enough of. Through it all I kept trying to support her and help her leave her dickhead bf, in the end it was better for my own sake to leave, i think if i hadn't i wouldn't be here right now despite my MH doing much better than it had been. She recently had to call the police on him for causing her physical harm, and she reached out to me, while I'm still wary of her intentions, it seems like she's on the road to healing as well, she apologised for making me feel how she did for most of my life and says she's going to start counselling and wants to rebuild our relationship when I'm ready. Even though she was a big part of why I am the way I am, I'm proud of her for getting help and the fact that she has addressed how she treated me has given me a lot of closure.

I'm not sure why I'm posting this, I know "it gets better" stories are cringe and annoying, but it genuinely does get better. I still have my down days but much less of them and less intensely. I still have derealisation and dissociation episodes, but I don't think of my CSA trauma much anymore or have as many nightmares, I'm with someone who relates to and understands my traumas and mental health, theres no pressure to be intimate bc she's also ace, I'm a few months clean of SH and F reminds me how proud she is of me being clean, I don't abuse substances like alcohol or my sleeping meds or drugs that are offered to me and haven't in a very long time, apart from nic maybe but it's not in a self destructive way and I love my fruity air, don't judge, at least I'm not still smoking weed every day or snorting MDMA or downing pills offered to me in the woods at night to feel like a real alive human 😭💀 I've cut out a lot of toxic people and friend groups, and my dad and I are talking again and he's so supportive of me, things really do get better when you give them a chance 💜 I hope ya'll are doing well too :]

Oh! And F bought me a binder, so now I'm a lot less dysphoric too, she's honestly the best :']

That's all I have to say really, ik I'm just ranting to the void rn but i hope this inspires at least one person who sees it :D

[desafrey]

family headcannons. i can’t remember the ask meme but if you have the link let me know and ill tag it. also used some from here.

what’s your muse’s relationship with their mother, what made it that way? des has the worst possible relationship with her mother. considering her mother completely neglected her from birth, and was abusive from then on towards her, while being completely doting to her younger sister, desdemona has basically no relationship with her mother. she’s feared her, hated her, absolutely wants nothing to do with her and wants her to stay way from what family she has now.

what’s your muse’s relationship with their father, what made it that way? she also doesn’t have a relationship with her father. her father was an absent parent to almost all of his children. she hardly knows him. doesn’t really care. he sometimes intervened on her mother’s abuse towards her, but not enough.

 does your muse have any siblings? Do they wish they had more/any? desdemona is the eldest of three siblings. abigail is her middle ( half ) sister, and tobias is her younger sibling. absolutely not. she doesn’t need any more siblings, and her parents don’t need to have kids they aren’t going to care for.

who is your muse’s favorite family member, why? her younger brother tobias is the only one des has ever had a relationship with. default is her favorite. he’s the only one who ever attempted to do anything, even if he was powerless in their family.

is there anyone in your muse’s family they dislike, why? abigail. abigail was the favorite sibling and constantly used it as something to rub in her face.

does your muse think they’re a good child and/or sibling? desdemona thought she was a good child. she didn’t understand why her mother hated her, couldn’t stand the sight of her. she had no idea what was wrong with her, to make her mother hate her as much as she did.

what are your muse’s thoughts on parenting and being a parent even if they aren’t one? desdemona takes being a parent very seriously. considering her own neglectful and terrible childhood, she refuses to make her children go through any of that. she loves her children, and will do anything for them. the person that people know or assume she is, is completely different when compared to who she is for her children. she’s a bitch, but not when it comes to her children.

what children does your muse have, do they want anymore/any at all? 7. four girls, 3 boys. desdemona always wants more kids. someone should stop her.

how would/does your muse handle unruly, difficult or dangerous behavior from their children? desdemona tries her best to understand. her most difficult kid being percy, who is in truthfully, too much like desdemona that their personalities clash and headbutt each other too much. percy used to feel like he wasn’t loved as much as his sister, but has since grown out of his acting out behavior. percy still heavily uses alcohol as a coping mechanism, but has considerably grown as a person when he realized that yes, his mother does love him.

think domestic. what is their daily routine like (re: chores, jobs, etc)? desdemona is the morning person between her and her partners. waking up at about six in the morning, desdemona spends her morning getting dressed, and usually, currently, dealing with her two toddlers, an her newborn. she makes them breakfast ( in truthfully, the only thing she is able to cook ), and gets the kids started for the day. lydia, her first born, is usually the second one up early for the day and helps assist, until her partners wake up a little bit later in the morning.

is there one dominant half of the relationship, or do they stand in mostly equal footing? originally, back when desdemona & julian first met both were way too similar to each other in terms of being obsessive, and controlling of the other, and their toxic qualities meshed together to form a toxic relationship. however the birth of their first children caused them slightly to be more away of it, and they’ve spent the last couple decades getting more well aware of their negative traits and working on them better for their family. now, they stand more equal to each other in terms of their relationship and their partnership.

what is their strongest point? they’re both completely obsessive and possessive over each other still. good for them. bad for you and anyone who hits on their partner. undying loyalty to each other.

how are the children’s relationship with each other ? if more than one child? desdemona has seven children, and like all siblings, they bicker and fight in some way or another. but at the end of the day, they are all very loved. and their siblings are their family. mess with one, you have to deal with all the others as well.

[nerd-at-sea5]

hold me, please. i'm never letting go

max is the first to realize that robin’s home life might be more similar to theirs than they originally thought, but soon robin’s secret slips and their in trouble-a lot of it, the party gains a member, and everyone cries.

aka, furthering my angsty robin/max sibling dynamic + robin’s little brother (an oc) jacob! (he’s 4 years younger than robin so 13 in this bc robins 17) (he uses she/her for robin at home bc it’s safer) (and and and the robin/max sibling comes late in the fic don’t hate me i had to traumatize robin first :) the pov switches a lot

they/them robin and max, she/they el, everyone else is canon

cw-verbal and physical abuse, slurs, blood, knives, suicidal ideation?, attempted rape/sa

ha my first rated M fic :) (fucking help me why do i do this) (there's no smut tho i promise)

they notice it the first time steve and nancy are driving them home, about two months after starcort. how robin lives just across the street-how they both have the same stance.

shoulder tensed, white knuckling their bag, robin tugs a hand through their undercut, fingering the short hair and pulling it before nancy takes their hand and pulls it away, kissing it. robin sighs softly, “c’mon red i’ll walk you to the door.”

and max let’s them, grateful for the company, weather it be the warmth of another person or the shocking way robin treats them like how they do erica and dustin-like siblings.

max doesn’t mind, steve’s been like an older brother for longer than they’d care to admit-they were never one of his kids. always a little sibling. he never replaces billy-he could never. but he was there. and now robin is.

they give a small look of thanks before tensing back up and stepping into the four walls of their own little prison.

robin watch’s max go, red hair bouncing up the stairs as they cross back to steve’s car, ruffle his hair, hug nancy and convince themself this isn’t the last time their going smell her vanilla perfume and feel her small but shockingly rough hands on their back, and head to their own house with.

it’s never easy being away from steve or nancy, their some of the only people who gets how it feels-not to mention the urge to grab max and take them far away from neil. let max hangout with jacob and cause chaos and be way to smart for everyone else. but they want to run back to nancy and kiss her, hold onto steve and call him names-but they can’t.

their not surprised to see that their younger brother is still awake. and robin gives him a tired smile as they pass, tossing him a quarter for the arcade and because they know their parents never give him cash.

“thanks, brainiac.”

“no prob, jock.”

and that’s that.

they go quietly to their room, a knot forming with each step, and eventually collapse onto their bed, already feeling much to empty and alone.

robin pulls of their jacket and tosses it into a pile with their backpack to wear again tomorrow and falls back onto bed to listen to music, drifting off to sleep.

their woken to jacob’s panicked face, shaking them way to hard for two am.

“rob! wake up wake up! the hell do you sleep so much?!”

“jake-dude. fuck off ’s like three.”

“two actually-get up!”

he shakes them again, going so far as to hit them with a pillow before groaning loudly, “robin. they know about nancy wheeler.”

robin’s up and standing instantly, “what?!”

of course jacob knows, jacob, who’s seen them reading emily dickinson and sappho’s work a thousand times, has seen robin doodling pink triangles onto their shoes, and eventually cornered them and asked, “do you like girls?” and they had to say yes.

“they found a photo from the arcade-photo booth photos. must have fallen out of your bag.”

“shit.”

because now robin can hear it, their parents hard tones and they start swearing.

“shit-fuck. damnit damnit, stupid stupid stupid! fuck.”

it’s just then that they see jacob crying.

“hey, hey no no what’s this? c’mon buddy don’t cry.”

and maybe he hasn’t seen all the horrible stuff that they have, but they’ve told him, they tell him everything. pulling him into a hug, hand in his hair. “c’mon man....’s ok.”

“they-their gonna kick you out rob…i don...wanna...don’t wanna be ‘lone.”

“it’s ok. it’ll be ok.”

and it’s not, because they start throwing all their important stuff into bags, so when the door comes flying open, and a photo of nancy wheeler’s lips against theirs is thrust in their face, jacob starts crying harder and robin’s heart breaks.

“morning.”

then the screaming starts.

“robin anne buckley how dare you do this, i can’t believe you would ever-”

“i didn’t raise a fucking dyke that’s for sure!!”

so they set their jaw and push past, fighting back tears and curses and yelling, fists balled so they don’t hit anything or anyone. anger is boiling, betrayal and hurt-these are their goddamn parents. they should love robin. “fine, don’t care.” hoping they don’t hear how their voice cracks and their on the stairs and then-

“DON’T TURN AWAY WHEN IM TALKING TO YOU, FAGGOT.”

hands on their back and robin-thankfully-instinctively tucks so they go rolling down the stairs and end up on the ground, already bruising and out of breath, jacob screaming, “STOP HURTING HER, THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

theirs a familiar sound of a blade being flipped from a pocket knife and robin starts to laugh, right in their dads face-while he’s holding a knife to them. they might be losing it but who fucking cares anymore? does it matter?

then they can feel their head slamming against the wall, and there’s blood coming from their legs because he cut through their pants and fuck.

they start screaming, jacob trips past her and races out the door, their mom calmly walking down the stairs and opening a book-robin can feel the blade digging into their arm and there’s blood dripping from their eyebrow and legs and, “HEY FUCKHEAD.”

there’s a flash of red and suddenly a 14 year old with a decently sized stick is on top of their father, jacob already holding duct tape and one of robin’s bags.

max mayfield stand up, blows hair out of their face and looks at robin, with a face that’s barley concealing the terror in their eyes, “i’m going to steal your dads car.”

robin nods, and then slumps against the wall, jacob’s voice ringing out, “blood loss! took a first aid class a bit ago, can you driiiiiii……….”

and the universe goes black.

max didn’t expect a random boy to run into her living room, waking a sleeping neil on the couch and yell for them, prompting them to leave before neil started swinging and when the boy introduced himself as jacob buckley, max panicked.

they really didn’t expect to be driving an unconscious and bleeding out robin to the byers house in a stolen car.

but they were. and they could hear the jacob is rustling around and swearing, choking back sobs until he flopped shirtless into the front seat, hands covered in robin’s blood.

“dude.”

“what? bastard had no towels!”

max shrugs off their jacket and passes it to him, “this is platonic, my girlfriend would kill you if otherwise.”

he nods, “gracias. you max?”

they nod as well, and they lapse into silence, tears still falling, until they get to the byers door, both jumping out of the car and max can feel their knuckled bruising as they slam on the door-god if robin dies.....max won’t let them, they couldn’t handle it.

a half asleep jonathan byers swings open the door, equally exhausted steve bracing himself on his bat and nancy wheeler holding a gun.

“max?” nancy’s the first to speak, the gun falling to her side as jacob chokes and stares at her, gaze hardening, “who’s blood is this-who is this?”

they all turn to max, who shakily points at the car, and steve bolts, “ROBIN-”

nancy’s right on his heals, and joyce walks out with the rest of the party when max stumbles inside, el catching her, “max? who’s this?”

“robin....”

mike raises an eyebrow, “no, robin’s not a guy.”

jacob slides to the floor and with a dead stare, holds out a blood soaked hand to mike, “jacob buckley.”

dustin’s jaw drops, “what the fuck-”

“that’s.....blood?!” lucas exclaims, backing away, when will quickly passes the boy a wet towel, max starts to sob into el’s arms, “they we’re just....el...”

el holds them, and max feels like their breaking, is robin ok? are they ok? please, please-

nancy wheeler wanted to cry. she wants to punch something, scream and cry and just-nothing in the world could have prepared her for seeing a much to pale robin, blood soaking through the shirt wrapped around their arms, bruises all over, unconscious.

joyce snaps out of it first, ordering jonathan and steve to carry them into the living room, tells nancy to go sit down, and that she’ll move the kids to another room.

nancy refuses, and instead sits next to steve while hopper carefully cuts off robin’s shirt, and joyce stiches the wounds on her arms.

she starts to cry again, can see max still shaking in el’s arms, that random boy huddled in the corner when steve finally goes over and asks him, “who the hell are you?”

“j-jacob buckley....”

jonathan drops the chocolate, “what the fuck?”

nancy whirls on him, “robin’s brother?!”

he looks up, and she can almost see the wall forming, his face melting into the one that nancy fell in love with-just a different face.

“no i’m their fuckin’ son. the hell d’you think, nancy wheeler?”

“how-how do you know my name?”

he shoots up, throwing out his still blood-covered arms, and yells, “’CAUSE THIS IS ALL YOUR FUCKIN’ FAULT!!”

she trips backwards, his words hitting her like a knife, slicing right through her, “what are you talking about?” steve grabs her arm, tear tracks across his face, “nancy, calm down-”

she whirls on him, “don’t tell me to fucking calm down harrington-my girlfriend is fucking dying and a kid who’s claiming to be their brother is saying it’s my fault.”

he scoffs, “it is. if you two hadn't kissed in the arcade none of this would’ve happened. they’d still be ok...”

nancy can feel the anger draining out of her, and before she knows it, she’s stepping towards the kid and pulling him into a hug, “jacob...i promise you i don’t know what’s happening-but i love robin, more than almost anyone else, so please-please tell me what happened?”

he chokes again, and buries his head into her shirt.

max is curled next to a sleeping? robin in the guest room, while nancy and jacob sit on the floor, the party around in chairs, listening to him explain.

when he’s done, steve slams his fist into the byers’ wall, will and jonathan groaning in unison, dustin buries his head in his hands, lucas rubbing his back, mike and el stare with shocked expressions, and nancy starts sobbing even more.

instantly mike is next to her, pulling her into his arms, and she can feel him shaking-she never cries in front of him, never when their parents would scream, never.

“it’s ok nancy.”

she’s trying to believe him but it’s so, so hard.

then max jumps off of the bed, “SHIT!”

el raises an eyebrow and robin slowly opens their eyes, staring at the group for a solid three seconds, “who’s funeral is it this time?”

max throws themself onto robin before jacob, steve or nancy, jacob jumping on top of max and steve and nancy are right behind him.

nancy can feel the other boys and el joining.

when they all pull away, steve is the first one to speak, “robin and mini buckley.”

“jacob.” both of them chorus, staring at him with the exact same, ‘seriously, dude?’ expression, and nancy has to stifle a laugh, because she has no idea how she never knew robin had a brother because he is so much like them.

“whatever. you’re both moving in with me, i just got an apartment. no arguments.”

robin nods, smiling, and max is next, “how long has this been happening for? did he do anything else? why was your mom just reading? why didn’t you tell me-”

“red.”

with a start, nancy sees fresh tears pouring down max’s face, “i thought i lost another sibling....”

robin gives them a sad smile, “not ah-’appening.” they wince for a second.

before anyone else can talk, joyce comes back inside, “ok everybody, we need to give rob some space, so we’ve gotta clear out till tomorrow ok? it’s like six am right now, so i’ll close the blinds and try to get some more sleep.”

they all groan and clear out, el taking max��s hand and leading them to her room, steve, jacob and nancy staying back.

joyce runs a hand through her hair, “steve, can you clean up jacob and let him sleep on jonathan’s bed, jacob are you ok with leaving robin alone?”

nancy watches him contemplate it, looking at her with a silentl question, ‘will you take care of them?’ she nods, and he nods to joyce.

steve picks him up and he giggles, sending a smile to robin’s face as jacob’s carried out and to the bathroom.

joyce turns to the two, “nancy-”

“i’m not leaving.”

she smiles, “i was going to say you can find clothes in the closet.”

then she leaves, and nancy turns to robin and feels the tears prickling at her eyes again, “c’mere wheeler.”

so she pulls off her shoes and sweater and climbs into bed with robin, putting her head on their chest, running a hand over the bandages on their arms and legs.

“i’m so sorry....”

“‘s not your fault nance...y’know that right?”

nancy shrugs, and listens to robin’s heartbeat, “i guess....why did you never tell me about jacob? he’s like a carbon copy of you.”

robin sighs, and nancy can feel their hand in her hair, it’s strongly calming and she realizes they’ve never lied like this together.

“dunno..he knows about starcort and all that, and you, i guess i thought if i told you all he’d be in trouble. i don’t wanna to risk his life.”

she nods, she wishes mike wasn't involved with all of this shit. “he’s nice, talks like you.”

robin raises their eyebrows, “...what?”

nancy props herself up on her elbows and grins, “doesn't say the ‘g’ in ‘fucking’, always says ‘’s’ and not ‘it’s’, ‘y’know’ ‘c’mere’ that kind of stuff. you both do it.”

robin is silent for almost thirty seconds, “shit...i didn’t know that.”

nancy has to laugh at how shocked they look, “i think it’s hot.”

that gets an eyebrow raise, “yeah?”

“mhm...”

robin smiles, the same smile nancy fell in love with-on the right person this time, as she leans down to kiss them.