#i really wish there would be a s2

[sableeira]

I love how we go from episode 3 “no one ever figured out what Dazai’s former occupation was” to episode 5 “Dazai corrects someone in detail on the mafia’s revenge mo”

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[astrolotte]

listen guys I love Peri a lot too, I think there's a lot about his character worth studying and that he's a good guy but you all have GOT to stop blaming Dev here when Peri is arguably more at fault!

Sure, Dev was mean to him, but Peri was mean back! And Peri is an adult while Dev is a ten year old child, Peri should have the capacity to not complain about him directly to his face, especially considering Dev has been emotionally abused all his life.

Ultimately, I don't consider it to be either of their faults. Sure, Peri was bad at this, but he straight up didn't have any experience except for Timmy, where he took up the role of a brother instead of a parent, a VERY different dynamic. Peri should've gotten like at least 3 different godkids before someone like Dev, to give him a feel for how different kids can be, and how you need to deal with different situations in their own ways. And that's just the lowest I'd advise going, he should've definitely had more.

So I blame the system for throwing him to the wolves fresh out of schooling, especially considering, iirc, Fairy Academy is canonically pretty terrible, as it's more like a military academy than an actual school. He had no proper experience, no way of knowing how to help a kid that doesn't seem to want to be helped...

But if you're going to blame anyone, blame Peri. Not the child that he was supposed to help, the child that he failed.

Mind you, 10 year olds literally don't even have fully developed minds yet, of course his sense of morality is a bit twisted. His brain isn't fully grown!

[variksel]

peachyville horror has done Something to my psyche and i dont know if i enjoy it only bcs its slow and painful ......... for the first time in my life im sitting here, 5 days before a new episode is coming out, and im getting excited about it being dndads tuesday soon

[cowboybirdie]

i wanted to write an angsty normal fic a couple months ago about how i was perceiving his character arc going. i was hoping id be wrong, but i ended up being totally right and im upset!

bc he’s finally seeing how undervalued he is to the team. he’s realizing that linc, taylor, and scary—really linc/taylor and linc/scary—are tight and he’s forgotten. he’s rarely included, his ideas get shot down, they make fun of him for always wanting to be kind and loving hard and wanting what’s best for the people he cares about. linc is like… perpetually putting normal down bc i think he has a morality superiority complex. like none of you, NONE OF YOU! would have made it this far on your “heroes journey” without normal!!!!

he CHOSE to take his sisters place even though he found out the cost, that he wasnt wanted, and that he was just a disappointment for not being special. he CHOSE to stay and support all of you even when he was constantly rejected and put down by friends and crushes and parents. he CHOSE all of them, regardless.

they’re setting up the scary/normal arcs how they set up awakening the doodler and it’s fucking killing me. scary is learning to open up with love, while normal is learning to shut down with hate.

im worried about normal.

[bizarrelittlemew]

pssst hey if you want an Ed/Stede wedding there is one in the epilogue of Something timeless going on 💕 my first multi-chapter fic that i wrote almost a year ago (37k, E, canon divergence/pining while fucking)

[tasteofyourblood]

quickly scanned through the gotham s1e1 script and found some fun little tidbits

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

I always think about how in multiple episodes it's basically canon that Blanche is bi but considers dating women to be more hassle (which is a whole rabbit hole to go down - does she struggle with societal homophobia when she's with women? Has she only been with fellow high maintenance femmes when shes really after a Dorothy type? Has she internalized the idea that her attraction to women isn't 'real'? Her reaction to Clayton adds to these questions). Not to mention how this goes together with her relationships with the girls; making to kiss Rose that one time (and Rose multiple times seeming very aware of Blanche's proclivities), begging Dorothy for 'relief' and being convinced she's attracted to women too.

Yes, anon! It’s really interesting to delve into Blanche’s psyche about all this stuff!

I started writing down my thoughts and ended up with a long ramble -- allow me to place it all under a cut, so I don't clog up anyone's dash, haha.

Personally, I think she has some strong mental blocks when it comes to her sexuality because of the way she was brought up. I mean, she grew up in Atlanta approx in the 1930s/1940s — I’m sure I don’t have to detail the kind of casual bigotry she must have seen around her during her formative years! Just look at the story she recounts in S1E13 A Little Romance:

“Now, you have to understand that in those days in the South a lot of things were still taboo. Certain people were not to mix. So Benjamin and I had to meet in secret. Oh, we knew if any of the bigots in town found out about us, there’d be a terrible scandal.”

And all of this because Benjamin was a yankee… can you imagine what ‘the bigots in town’ thought about homosexuality? Yeah, I’m pretty sure Blanche learned to suppress that part of herself very early on. We know she turns to denial when she’s faced with uncomfortable truths and emotions she can’t deal with, so I think she likely just refuses to acknowledge that part of herself most of the time, and it only comes out (pun intended!) when she’s not paying much attention to things, or when there’s something more important going on. See the two examples you point out: when she tries to kiss Rose she’s concerned with not being kissed at midnight, and when she propositions Dorothy she’s, well… she’s desperate to get some, if we can be frank.

When she’s in a more rational state, her reactions tend to be more measured… but not by much. She does advise Rose not to date women (S3E10 The Audit):

“Oh, no, honey, don’t do that! No job is worth having to date women!”

But she’s also really flattered at receiving lots and lots of phone calls from women, after her appearance as a ‘lesbian’ on TV (S7E15 Goodbye, Mr Gordon):

“By the way, Dorothy, if I were a lesbian, I sure would be a popular one. Look at this, 20 calls.”

And of course we can’t forget her reaction to finding out that Jean has a crush on Rose in S2E5 Isn’t It Romantic?:

“Jean has the hots for Rose? I don’t believe it, I do not believe it! […] To think Jean would prefer Rose over me? That’s ridiculous! […] Now you tell me the truth: if you had to pick between Rose and me, who would you pick? Who?”

All of these are (likely) intended to be jokes about her vanity and her libertine nature (in the same way as Rose’s observations are), but considering a lot of the writers of this show were queer themselves, it wouldn’t seem strange to me if they were intentionally peppered in to suggest that Blanche might be a bisexual in denial. It certainly fits her character!

I haven’t spoken about her reaction to Clayton’s coming out yet, but that’s immensely interesting too, of course. I think Blanche has the same attitude towards homosexuality that I see in a lot of (mostly older) people in my Country nowadays: it’s fine as a general concept, but when it comes to her family (or, God forbid, herself) then the problems come out. See for example what she says about Jean:

“Well, I’ll never understand what Jean doesn’t see in the opposite sex, but if that makes her happy, that’s fine by me!”

Which isn’t a homophobic attitude at all! If anything, if you take her upbringing into account, it’s pretty accepting. But then, when Clayton comes out to her (S4E9 Scared Straight) and tells her he wants to get married (S6E14 Sister Of The Bride), this is what she says:

“Oh, Clayton, please be serious. You're just saying that so I won't set you up with any more women. […] Well, then you're saying it 'cause you're trying to get back at me for something. Clay, I know you too well for this. After all, I know it can't be true. You're my brother. […] Clayton Hollingsworth. You look me in the face and tell me you really are… what you just said you are.”

“I'm having a little trouble putting this all together. Clayton, I just feel like I don't know you anymore.”

“[…] Dorothy, that's different. We're talking about going out in public. Oh, what are people gonna say?”

“Will you tell me why you want to put yourself and Doug through this? You know how people can be.”

“Oh, look, I can accept the fact that he's gay, but why does he have to slip a ring on this guy's finger so the whole world will know?”

Quite the difference from her attitude towards Jean, wouldn’t you say? I think there’s three elements at play here.

1) When Clayton comes out to Blanche, she feels disoriented because this is life-changing information Clayton has never shared with her before. While her reaction as a whole isn’t ideal, personally I think it’s understandable. Clayton is her baby brother; she’s known him as straight all his life, he’s been married to a woman for years before his divorce, and she recounts an episode from their adolescence when he was on a date with a woman and very clearly implicated having a physical encounter with her. He's done everything in his power to pass as straight until this point in time -- I don't find it strange that Blanche would be shocked at his coming out, especially given her upbringing (and the fact that this is set in the 80s! We can't expect modern sensibilities from the characters!). Once again, her reaction isn't the best (she can't even bring herself to say the word 'gay' at first...), but the shock per se isn't that surprising, imho.

2) Blanche is scared because of societal implications above all. She doesn't necessarily see being queer as something wrong, but she's been taught it's not socially acceptable and acts accordingly. Notice how she's worried about what people are going to say, and she struggles to accept that Clayton wants the whole world to know about his relationship with Doug.

Societal expectations in general are a big theme for Blanche's character, and often drive her development; another big example of this is her attitude towards Rebecca's decision to get artificially inseminated, but it's a bit of a baseline issue for her, I feel. She has this whole thing about her beauty and her (supposed) youth and her attractiveness that has some inherent elements, but it's mostly an issue of how other people perceive her, I think, and her response to her brother's coming out is easy to relate to this theme. I mean, she even says it to Rose in S7E15:

"Well, I don't mind being labeled a lesbian, honey, but since I'm not, you just ruined my social life."

So yeah. I think it's safe to say her main concern is societal disapproval of queerness: she wants to be accepted and celebrated by the people around her, and she thinks that being openly queer will destroy her place in her social circle (and she's worried about the same happening to Clayton too, of course).

3) This is sort of related to point 2, but it felt distinct enough to treat it separately. I think she might have reacted so badly to Clayton's coming out (and especially to his showing up with a partner) because he's open about his sexuality, and she's not ready to face what that means for her. My lovely mutual @\hecatesbroom recently published her latest amazing work the odd one(s) out, on the relationship between Dorothy and her brother Phil and how Phil's open queerness might have impacted Dorothy; I think a similar situation might have occurred between Blanche and Clayton after his coming out.

Blanche has a sort of advantage on Dorothy because of her bisexuality, in the sense that she has 'passing privilege' (I really dislike this concept, but allow me to use it to make a point): it's painfully clear that she loved her late husband with all her heart, and she's obviously attracted to men as well, so she can pretend not to like women without too much of a hassle (whereas, if you believe Dorothy to be a repressed lesbian, her situation is much more complicated).

The issue with this is that this 'advantage' is a double-edged sword: she might have the comfort of being socially acceptable, but she's had to suffocate a big part of herself to obtain that comfort. And so, what happens when Clayton -- her baby brother Clayton, the one who's always been just like her, who's grown up with her same environment and influences -- begins openly living as a gay man? I'm sure the situation must have had a strong impact on her, even if just on a subconscious level; I've always found it curious that she seems to have a harder time accepting Clayton in S6E14 than she does in S4E9 (she even calls his sexuality a phase), and while a part of it may be attributed to the higher social exposure Clayton's commitment to Doug brings, I think this may be a result of her inner conflict, provoked by watching her brother live openly while she's been suppressing a part of herself all her life.

Here I'm assuming she's never acted upon her attraction to women before, but there's some space to believe she has done so and has decided it's too much of a hassle, as you say -- likely because she'd for sure do it in secret, given her fear of societal condemnation. If she has been with women before, and decided to give up on it, I still think she'd be greatly impacted by Clayton's coming out: it means her baby brother is a) braver than she is, and b) going to openly face (and likely suffer because of) the same social issues she's run away from. In this lens, I find it interesting that she cautions him about how people can be, almost as if they've both experienced it.

Whew. Wow, this was a lot more than I'd originally meant to write, haha! Seems you sparked a big train of thought, anon! I think all of the Girls (with the possible exception of Sophia) are really fascinating to analyze with a queer lens, and Blanche is always interesting to me, of course. As a final note, I'd like to point out that she does come around to Clayton's sexuality and his relationship, in the end: as often happens, she just needs the Girls' help to put things back in perspective, understand she's hurting someone she loves, and correct her actions. I'd like to think living with the Girls might lead to her becoming more accepting of herself, too.

[7-7-cherry]

Rio day!!!

[thats-a-mood-gabriella]

This song came up on a random shuffle today and now I can't get Blitz out of my head about it.

This truth may be the coldest that I've come to know / There's so much about me that you don't see / And if I let you in, the ending would begin / You're waiting for someone I'll never be / I know your eyes only see forever / We taste so sweet together / When I look in the mirror / It hurts like hell, asking myself / How can I love you / Without breaking your heart?

aka "I destroy everything. I make everyone's lives worse."

[om0000]

do u guys think sylvias reluctance to believe in redemption despite basically being a former "badguy" who was redeemed w the power of friendship is cuz she still didnt fully forgive herself or cuz she just has common sense

[taters-for-tots]

it should be illegal to ignore me while i talk about things that i like btw. if you even care.

[cerealbishh]

"You get to see her understanding of how things really are. And so that becomes much more present on the surface. (...) In this season, we get to see her fall deeper in love with him but also navigate those challenges. And also becoming an anchor for Rhett but also struggling with his decision, 'Is this what I want for my future as well, as much as I love this man?'." - Isa in an interview with The Knockturnal(x)

[all-thestories-aretrue]

This entire post is personal opinion, you don't have to agree, etc etc. Discussion of self harm, including cutting and eating disorders, and discussion content warnings and how they are used to follow, consider this your warning.*

Netflix could have done a better job with the content warnings for Heartstopper. Denoting every episode with a content warning for self-harm is not helpful.

Tagging every episode feels a bit like the boy who cried wolf except you don't know if it's a wolf or a bear or a snake he's actually crying about.

Not only are there different types of self-harm shown/discussed, they are also present to different extents and severities.

Once it becomes apparent that Charlie has disordered eating patterns and, is more than once, shown to be leaving entire meals on the table, it's easy to assume the cw for self-harm has been addressed or that there is no mystery behind it. The expectation is set that the cw refers to Charlie's eating disorder and what is discussed and shown about it.

So, in the last episode, when Charlie reveals he has cut himself in the past, viewers may be blindsided by the statement. The content warning has not changed but, ironically enough, the content and context has. There is no lead up to this reveal, no hints or foreshadowing that Charlie has struggled with cutting previously. The content warning is the only indication that something like this may be mentioned but with Charlie's eating disorder front and center for the middle part of the season, it's been established that's what the cw is for. Why would viewers assume there is going to be something else thrown at them in the last half of the last episode?

That instance alone is enough to show that self-harm is not a monolith, and it should not be treated as such. People's triggers to self-harm are not a monolith, and they should not be treated as such.

Self-harm is not one thing, one action you do to yourself. It varies wildly. It is context dependent. It cannot jusr be called just "self-harm" and the bases considered covered.

What about those who had no prior knowledge of Charlie's eating disorder and did not think eating disorders fell into the category of self-harm? What about those who did not know of Charlie's history with cutting? What about the people who were triggered because a content warning for self-harm is not descriptive enough for them to keep themselves safe?

The solution is to provide content warnings for eating disorders, for cutting, for other types of self-harm instead of self-harm as one entity.

I know this is one facet of a much larger problem, and I am sure that there are exceptions and flaws to this analysis and proposal I have not thought of. But I am tired of self-harm being treated as one thing when it's not and never has been. The term ignores the complexity and context in which those behaviors take place in, and it's not enough of a warning for those who need it.

This post is not to discount the fact that Charlie has an eating disorder or a history of cutting. In fact, I'm over the moon there's a main character of an incredibly popular YA series that has a history of cutting, and I deeply hope his story is treated with care and provides hope to teenagers who are struggling with the same issues. I have an entire other post I want to make about that representation.

*Tumblr blacklists posts that are tagged with self-harm or any variation of, so they will not be found in the tags below. My own content warning at the top will have to suffice until Tumblr no longer censors discussions around these topics as they are important, and the people having them deserve to be heard.

[abeinginsand]

From what I remember, its never stated why Hero goes to another high-school. But I like to imagine its because the school offers some class or club that she was really interested in! And maybe when she first mentioned wanting to go there, her parents weren’t all that sold on the idea (out of concern etc). She wins them over with this huge presentation just for them in the living room one night, showing her power point on the tv and maybe its purposefully silly in some areas (many memes and inside family jokes)?  Its clear she’s passionate and excited, and by the end--they are about as excited (and proud) as she is  Also she totally does that pushing glasses up anime gesture thing when she presents 

[acesammy]

I know I get so blinded by Sams plot when watching spn that I often overlook deans, but do you ever think about deans s2 arc? Bc it’s batshit good.

John sells his soul for dean and dean spends the entire season suffering for it - to the point that he /explicitly/ makes the point that selling your soul for a loved one is a selfish and cruel act - only to do that to Sam. Bc Dean just cannot fathom living while Sam is dead. and thinking about all this makes me want to start chewing drywall bc Dean KNOWS how selfish he is being here, but the idea of sacrificing yourself for someone else’s life - regardless of how much that person WOULD NOT WANT THAT - comes across as the most selfless caring thing you can do.