#if not then what is the harm in acknowledging that sometimes things get worse?

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

some people who try to "rehabilitate" the dark ages are doing too much. it's one thing to say it wasn't as bad as popularly imagined in the past.

but it's another thing to say it wasn't bad at all or that it wasn't obviously a downgrade from the ages that preceded or even that it was actually equal or even /better/ than the ages that preceded it (actually thing i've seen people say).

like look at this "medievalist":

he basically acknowledges that there was a decline by several metrics -- even says this isn't disputed -- but then he still insists we stop using the term "dark age" because of "emotional baggage". lmao.

has the same energy as this:

[traumasurvivors]

I wrote a blog post about how harmful it can be to have your emotions invalidated growing up. It's here if you want to check it out! I'll paste the text below the read more for people who don't like links, but if you're comfortable, I really appreciate getting hits on my site! It feels really validating after all the work I've put into it. I've opted to not have any ads or anything to monetize my site, so it isn't like those annoying clickbait articles.

The effects of having our emotions invalidated while we’re growing up isn’t talked about enough and it can have lasting effects. This can happen when people say things like “you don’t know real struggles” when a younger person is upset about something they’re struggling with. This might include being told “I’ll give you something to cry about” which implied that the reason you were crying then “wasn’t a big enough reason”. Other people may have had to deal with “worse” problems and so we were told to be thankful for what we had because of what other children experienced. Your feelings of sadness, frustration, disappointment or anger were still real and valid. And you were allowed those feelings.

You may have been told to “stop being so sensitive,” which taught that you weren’t tough enough. You may have also been told “it builds character” which may have made you feel that you had to find a positive lesson in every bad thing you experienced. This can also be part of how people invalidate the seriousness of abuse, and other things that happened to you that were someone else’s fault. If someone doesn’t want to take responsibility, they may minimize what happened to you. They may say it’s okay because “they didn’t mean to do it” or “they don’t know any better,” perhaps because of abuse they went through. Your feelings may be invalidated because someone wants you to “let it go.” How serious they feel it was, or the reasons it happened, are not reasons that your feelings should be ignored or disregarded. Your feelings are valid. You should never have to “let it go.” 

These things that we were told, and many more, taught us that our emotions were bad and wrong. It likely felt invalidating. It may have been damaging And it probably affects how we see the emotions of others. I’ve had people say similar things to me now that I’m an adult, and I think it’s likely they do it because they were told things like these when they were younger, too. Over time, this has led to me invalidating my own feelings. I’ve told myself I should be strong and to avoid such feelings, or that the reasons for them weren’t “big enough”. I told myself that others had it worse than me, therefore I wasn’t allowed to be upset. None of these things helped me. Instead, they actually made me worse off. I bottled stuff up and then began using unhealthy coping methods to deal with the emotions. Having our emotions invalidated as we grow up can be traumatizing in its own way. It also doesn’t teach us how to effectively deal with and process our negative emotions. This can lead to people having fits of uncontrollable rage, spirals of depression and guilt, substance abuse to avoid feelings, and any number of other unhealthy reactions that can cause us more harm and prolong everything or make it worse.

Being unable to cope with my feelings was a big part of me not being able to cope with conflict in my relationships. Downplaying any “bad” thing that happened and ignoring it meant, for instance, I wouldn’t point out and deal with a small (sometimes completely unintentional) mistake. Instead, I let my feelings build without communicating about them and let my resentment build. By the time I acknowledged and spoke about my feelings, the problem was a thousand times worse than it would have been if I had dealt with it quickly. And sometimes it was too late to fix the damage done.

It’s not too late to learn and do better. You don’t have to be thankful it wasn’t “worse”. You don’t have to find a silver lining. While it’s important not to get stuck in our feelings long-term, sitting with them and feeling them and acknowledging you aren’t okay is okay! It’s okay to think something sucks or that it wasn’t fair. It’s okay to feel frustrated or sad over “small” things. Sometimes we don’t even understand why a situation or something has left us having such big feelings, and that’s okay, too! Your feelings are real and valid, even if they don’t make sense to you. And you deserve patience and compassion. Especially from yourself.

When you have negative feelings, if you find yourself minimizing them, or telling yourself why you don’t have a right to feel them, stop and try to be aware of what you’re doing. And allow yourself to feel it if you can. I've often had to remind myself that while it is uncomfortable, I can be uncomfortable and sit with my feelings. Think about if there’s a healthy response you can have to those feelings. For instance, if someone said something hurtful to you, talking to them about it might be a lot more productive than acting like you don’t care. Your feelings are valid. And invalidating them yourself is unlikely to be good for you.

Try to remember that, and try to be kind to yourself.

[defectivevillain]

until it doesn't hurt

pairing: Bruce Banner/Reader

reader’s pronouns: they/them

the reader's race and gender are ambiguous; no physical descriptors are used.

summary: “I could’ve caused you irreversible harm,” Bruce says. It’s almost a practiced recitation at this point, and you have to wonder if he truly believes that—or if he’s just been conditioned by everyone around him to believe he is only capable of inflicting pain. “You didn’t,” you maintain, for what feels like the thousandth time. Bruce is so caught up in the hypotheticals that he refuses to see the success right in front of him: the fact that he didn’t so much as lay a finger on you.

word count: 2.9k | ao3 version

warnings: canon-typical violence

Being an Avenger means you have to be ready for anything at all times. That spontaneity is difficult to adjust to at first, but as time passes, you grow used to it. You grow used to sleeping lightly; to stashing weapons just about anywhere you can keep them; to having few restful days and many restless ones. The moment your powers manifested, you knew you would be a hero: not because you wanted to be one, but because it would be your responsibility to protect those who needed protecting. 

You weren’t always an Avenger. At first, you were just a rogue—kind of a vigilante. But then the attack on New York happened—Loki happened—and everything flew out the window. Suddenly, you were out on the street in broad daylight, trying your best to keep the civilians safe. That was how you crashed into Iron Man of all people. You exchanged banter and insults, but when it came down to it, you protected him, and he protected you. And Tony is extremely persistent—it didn’t take long for him to sink his claws into you and drag you back to the Avengers Tower. 

From there, you gradually get to know the other Avengers. Steve and Clint are relatively friendly right off the bat. Natasha is a bit more difficult—you have to earn her trust before she starts to open up to you. But eventually, somehow, you manage to bond with all of the other occupants of the Tower. At least, all of them except Bruce Banner. 

Bruce is an interesting case. He almost immediately dismissed you when Tony first introduced you, instead deigning to focus on his experiments. You hadn’t taken offense to Bruce’s reclusive behavior, nor had you taken the hint that he didn’t want to get to know you. Instead, you had all but forced him to acknowledge you. This manifested in a multitude of ways: from going out of your way to talk to him to offering to help with his research. Bruce is extremely protective of his laboratory, but somehow he deemed you capable enough to serve as his laboratory assistant. You were more than content to hand him capsules and adjust minor things, while he did the brunt of the work. You took the gifted opportunities to attempt to get to know him better. At first, it was like speaking to a brick wall. But somewhere along the way, his cold and uncaring façade began to crack. You slowly worked your way up to meaningless small talk—and, later, casual conversation.

Truthfully, you really enjoy spending time with Bruce. But he’s rather unpredictable—sometimes he’ll push you away, and other times he’ll play along. You know that he has a lot of baggage—what with his childhood and his alter-ego. You’ve been trying to convince him that you care about him—that you’re not going to abandon him or villainize him—but he doesn’t ever seem to believe you. He always conducts himself with some semblance of suspicion and doubt; it almost seems like he’s waiting for you to wake up to reality and run away screaming.

Still, progress is progress—no matter how slow. You’re happy with how you’ve slowly bonded with him, and you can only hope that there’s more on the horizon for the both of you. 

…You never consider the possibility that something could happen to make things worse—to destroy your progress and send you right back to the start. 

“We need you for something.”

You’re brutally torn from your reverie, forced to slowly come back to yourself. You’re sitting in the living room, staring ahead at the blank wall. How long have you been sitting here? All you know is that it’s no longer light outside, and that Natasha is standing in front of you with a firm expression. 

“I- what?” You stammer, still processing what’s happening. “Nat-”

“It’s important,” she says. You get to your feet before she can continue speaking. “Trust me.” You do trust her. Natasha isn’t one for over-exaggeration or dramatics; when she says something is important, she means it. And the grave expression on her face is only worrying you more. You follow after her as she walks down the hall and towards the elevators. The two of you step into the space and she presses a button, before the elevator slowly rises. 

In hindsight, perhaps you should’ve been a bit more suspicious. Why would she be taking you to another floor in the Tower? Typically, when there’s a new development or an imminent threat, you’ll be directed to another location—either to combat the threat or to strategize. Furthermore, there’s a strained silence in the air between Natasha and you. Nat’s shoulders are drawn tight and she’s staring ahead pointedly, as if avoiding your eyes. 

The elevator dings and you breathe an internal sigh of relief, hoping to get rid of this needless tension. But before you can begin to take a step, you’re being roughly shoved out of the elevator and into the hallway. It takes you several moments to get your bearings—at which point you recognize the telltale sounds of the doors behind you closing, and the elevator dropping back down to where you came. You stare at the closed doors in disbelief, before turning to look back down the hall. One of the recreational rooms is straight ahead, and you hear yelling. 

Once you’re standing in the doorway, you’re able to place the inexplicable noises you were hearing. Bruce is in his Hulk form, green and raging as he throws anything within his grasp at the walls around him. You’re willing to bet Natasha brought you here to do something about this. Why she thinks you’re the best person to calm Bruce down, you’re not sure. 

“Bruce,” you say slowly. Bruce promptly freezes, an exercise machine lifted over his head. He stares down at you; you stare up at him. He’s momentarily distracted by you. “It’s okay.” He’s silent. You hold your hands out at your sides in mock surrender. “I’m not here to hurt you,” you continue. “You’re safe.”

Silence. You take a slow breath. The machine he’s holding over his head drops a fraction of an inch. 

“It’s okay, Bruce.” You repeat, pushing as much conviction into your voice as you can. Your effort seems to work, as his eyebrows furrow. For a moment, there’s nothing but silence as the two of you stare at each other. Then, his visage shifts and you’re suddenly looking at Bruce Banner—disheveled and exhausted.

“Are you alright-?” You’re compelled to ask. The scientist is back in human form, wearing nothing but a tattered pair of pants; bruises and scratches litter his skin; and there’s a distant expression on his face. He seems to snap out of his trance when he hears your voice.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bruce then spits. You immediately flinch at the unexpected anger. “Seriously, what the fuck are you doing here?” His gaze is flitting about the room quickly, before settling on you with fevered intensity. You’ve never seen Bruce look so irate before. He’s a remarkably composed man (although you suspect he bottles up anger and rage and lets it out in bursts as the Hulk). Indeed, this kind of fury is typical for the Hulk, but exceedingly rare for Bruce. 

“I didn’t-” You choke out helplessly, glancing back at the hall and, by extension, the elevator. “They-” It’s inexplicably difficult for you to get the words out. 

“That was our doing.” A voice confesses from behind you. You turn around to find Nat and Tony standing behind you. The two of them approach and come to a stop at your side. 

Bruce’s gaze locks on them with fiery focus. He brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. His glasses are nowhere to be seen—he must’ve dropped them somewhere as he transformed. “I expected better from both of you.”

“Bruce-” Tony tries to say, an apologetic expression on his face. 

“What on earth made you think that throwing them out as bait was a good idea?” Bruce interjects furiously, motioning towards you. “You could’ve gotten them seriously injured!” He exclaims. Tony has the good grace to look embarrassed; Nat is staring ahead with a flat expression and her arms crossed over her chest.

“Bruce, I’m fine-” You try to say, quickly growing uncomfortable with the tension settling in the air. 

“I could’ve harmed you,” Bruce is quick to assert. “Easily.” His voice is cold. 

“But you didn’t,” you maintain. He’s not giving himself enough credit. More troubling is the idea that he has faith in his own cruelty—that he only sees himself as capable of harming someone. You don’t know what else to say, don’t know what could possibly be said to repair the evident years of damage done to this man’s psyche. The entire world has treated him as a weapon at best and an uncontrollable, irredeemable monster at worst.

“That doesn’t matter,” Bruce says with unshakeable certainty. He retreats from the room, leaving you to stare after him in confusion and shock. You turn to face Natasha and Tony, who are both staring at the doorway with complex looks. 

You want to tell them off, but the words that leave your lips are far different than you intend them to be. “Should I go after him?” You ask instead. Bruce is the primary concern right now—you can chew Tony and Nat out later. You’ve known him for a bit now, and have grown to interpret his expressions fairly easily. You’ve seen Bruce express a lot of emotions… but the look on his face just now is completely foreign to you. 

“Probably,” Tony admits. 

“I don’t think we should,” Natasha says, motioning towards Tony and herself. “He’s mad at us. And… rightfully so.” She exchanges a glance with Tony, whose lips are pressed in a thin line. It’s clear they didn’t give enough thought to their whole plan. 

“You’ll be fine, though,” Tony says with unfounded conviction. Nat places a hand on your shoulder and grips it reassuringly. You take a deep breath and come to a decision, walking down the hall and towards the elevator doors. 

Moments later, you’re walking out of the lift and down the dim hallway leading to Bruce’s bedroom. He’s entirely alone on this floor of the tower. You pause in front of his door for a few seconds, wondering if you should walk away. But you can’t. Instead, you knock on the door four times. “Bruce?” You ask. Despite the clear sturdiness of the door, he’s able to hear you. 

“Go away.” Bruce responds. His voice is a little muffled, and you have to strain to hear him. 

You’re hurt for the briefest of moments. Then you shelve the feeling and resolve yourself to tackling it later. “I’m coming in,” you announce, placing your hand against the scanner at the edge of the doorway. The scanner flashes green and the door slides open, revealing Bruce’s bedroom. You’ve never been here before. It’s modestly decorated, with mostly monotone shades. Nothing particularly strikes you, save for the giant desk in the corner of the room. Papers litter the entire surface of the desk, and a few are covered by Bruce’s arms. 

The man doesn’t look up as you approach. “I don’t want to see you,” Bruce says. His back is turned and you’re unable to see his expression. 

“I don’t care,” you respond, taking a few steps into the space until you’re a short (yet seemingly insurmountable) distance from Bruce. He’s sitting at his desk, rubbing his hands over his eyes roughly. It doesn’t take long for you to remember your guilt. “Bruce, I don’t want you to torture yourself over this.” Maybe you shouldn’t have interfered in the first place. 

“I could’ve caused you irreversible harm,” Bruce says. It’s almost a practiced recitation at this point, and you have to wonder if he truly believes that—or if he’s just been conditioned by everyone around him to believe he is only capable of inflicting pain. 

“You didn’t,” you maintain, for what feels like the thousandth time. Bruce is so caught up in the hypotheticals that he refuses to see the success right in front of him: the fact that he didn’t so much as lay a finger on you. 

“No, I don’t think you understand,” Bruce says with a shake of his head. He pushes himself out of his chair and gets to his feet, turning around to face you. Your eyes widen as you notice the torn expression on his face, the dark circles under his eyes, and the determination written in every line of his form. “My eyes locked onto you and, for a split second, I envisioned harming you. Deliberately.” The confession clings to the air like a vice. 

“But you didn’t act on that impulse,” you assert. “You suppressed it.” 

“So?” Bruce argues. “I still had the urge. You should be disgusted, afraid-” 

“I’m not afraid of you, Bruce,” you interrupt. The statement lingers heavily in the air between the two of you. For a long moment, there’s nothing but the faint hum you’ve grown to associate with the Tower itself.  

“You should be,” Bruce then mutters. And suddenly he’s standing in front of you, staring at you with a dark gaze. His fists are clenched at his sides and you see his skin flicker with shades of green, before it returns to normal. The man maneuvers you to the side and shoves you, until you’re hitting the wall behind you. Bruce’s hands move up to your shirt collar and he clenches at it, his fingers almost spasming as he tightens his grip. You just stare at him. “I could ruin you.” He murmurs, so quietly that you have to strain to hear it. 

You want to argue with him so badly, but that strategy hasn’t been working so far. For some reason, Bruce has convinced himself that he not only has the capacity to hurt you, but that he wants to. You know that can’t be true, but how can you convince him? If he thinks he can ruin you… “Then do it,” you challenge him. He meets your eyes once more and you stare back unflinchingly, trying to convey how much you trust him. 

If you thought the tension was suffocating before, it’s practically ripping the breath from your lungs now. Everything around you seems to fade into obscurity. All you can see is Bruce; all you can feel is Bruce. His fingers twitch and his grip falls from your collar. For an awful moment, you think he’s going to walk away—turn his back on you as he has done so many times before. But he doesn’t. Instead, he leans closer. If he’s trying to get you to back down, then it isn’t working. 

At first, you want to think that Bruce is testing you. But the way he’s regarding you right now—with glittering desire in his eyes—makes you think otherwise. His hands move from the wall to your shoulders, back to the nape of your neck, until he gently tugs you forward. It’s hardly a strong pull, and you understand the choice he’s giving you. 

But, you think fondly, there was never much of a choice. From the moment you locked eyes with him, you knew he would dominate your thoughts. And indeed, he has. You think about the hard-won look of approval in his eyes when you make an astute observation; the way he almost frantically looks across the battlefield, his posture instantly relaxing once he sees you; the contradictions written all over his skin; the rare smiles you feel privileged to see. 

You lean forward and press your lips to his. Bruce is quick to reciprocate, his hands lingering at the nape of your neck before slipping down to your waist. You lock your arms around his shoulders, practically trapping him in your embrace. But from the strength of his grip, you can ascertain that the gesture is more than welcome. 

Later, when you break apart, Bruce has a disbelieving expression on his face. He looks slightly dazed, as if suspicious of the reality he now finds himself in. You grasp his wrist gently. 

“You can’t get rid of me, Bruce,” You murmur insistently, “...no matter how hard you try.”

He stares at you for another long moment. “And I have tried,” Bruce admits through a dry huff. You want to be offended by the comment, but you know it’s true. Bruce is stupidly self-sacrificing—he purposefully keeps his distance from people to protect them. But the reality of the situation is that people will come to harm regardless of his presence. “But you’re too stubborn.” That statement is spoken with a significant amount of fondness, and his hand comes up to cradle your cheek. You bring your hand up to rest on top of his. 

“I’ll always be here, even when you don’t want me to be.” You promise. And maybe that promise isn’t yours to make, because one can never truly predict what will come next. But somehow, deep down, you know it to be true. 

Bruce brings you close once more, an uncharacteristic note of boldness in the fluid movement. When you step back moments later, you find that he has a hint of a smile on his face. “I know,” Bruce says, the traces of apprehension on his face breaking and cracking to reveal a rare sight: unrestrained affection.

thanks for reading! <3

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[caparrucia]

I read your post about the Dead Dove Do Not Eat tag, and how you think people should take more responsibility for their own experience in the fandom sphere, and I very much agree with the points you raised. I just have a question regarding this one:

" "But what if I read something that wasn't tagged X?" Well, that's very unfortunate for you, but if it is genuinely that upsetting, you have a responsibility to yourself to only browse things explicitly tagged to not include X."

So, when I'm writing fanfics, and putting them on Ao3, should I tag their lack of things they don't include? Like, none of my fics include self harm, because I'm not willing to read it and even less willing to write it, should I put "#no self harm" in there, for people who have a worse reaction to it than I do and are following your advice?

Not asking "is it a moral imperative" because I know it isn't, but is it something you think would actually help anybody?

So, let's talk about context, because like all great spats in Fandom, this is about context.

Tags are contextual. They're flags that are trying to bring a specific demographic to your fic. Or, conversely, keep a certain demographic away from your fic. Tags are also never comprehensive. It is impossible to tag a fic comprehensively, because there will always be more tags. You can tag for the food that appears, the clothes, the political framework taken for granted. You can tag for gender or sexuality of the characters, even if the story is not about that per se. (See the large number of people annoyed when you write trans characters in stories and don't advertise it widely, despite their genital configuration having anything to do with the story at hand. Hi, Pokemon fandom. No, I will never forgive you the harassment and transphobia.)

The wording in the post, I acknowledge, might appear very dramatic at first glance. But that's because it's responding to a very dramatic, very aggressive statement. The way that certain people weaponize their trauma to try and shut down art they do not like. "This triggered me!" Is a really shitty comment to get, as a writer. Because it's usually a trap. If you extend sympathy, you will quickly find that the person yelling at you about this doesn't want platitudes or commiseration or actual resources to manage their triggers. They want you to take your fic down and remove it from the world, because "it triggered them." They want to treat your fic like a dog with rabbies: putting it down is the only conceivable solution, and no amount of polite rebukes (or, let's face it, annoyed snarking) will get you anywhere. They are not having a conversation with you. They have deemed you responsible for doing them harm (your work triggered them, therefore you, personally, set out to trigger them) and they're not willing to take anything less but the obliteration of your work as restitution.

The response "lol, that's a you problem, if it's so bad, you have a personal responsibility to not read anything that isn't explicitly stated to not include the thing that triggers you" is very mean. I acknowledge that. But it's not a response that comes from community, it's a response that aims to communicate clearly and concisely that you're not available to entertain any kind of overwrought nonsense and that you're not available to be emotionally blackmailed into removing your work from circulation.

Triggers are like allergies. The people that have them have to manage them to their best of their ability, and the people who don't have those triggers could stand to do more to be accommodating, for sure. Current tag culture is in fact the result of years upon years of the Wild West Internet that us old farts are constantly talking about. See, in the old internet, there was no social expectation for tagging. You got a title, you got a rating (not always!), sometimes you got a pairing. Anything else was a roulette. Like literally anything. I used to be in FMA fandom way back before AO3 and tag culture was a thing and let me tell you, the amount of times I ended up mid-incest fic because the initial premise sounded like a cute brothers bonding scenario? More than once. There was no tag for incest. Someone threw a fic into an IRC channel with a generic "this one was good!" and it could be ANYTHING. Literally anything!

Here's where I disagree with a lot of The Olds who whine about The Old Days: the Old Days way of doing fic? Awful. Shitty. Traumatizing, legitimately. I love tag culture. I think tag culture is one of the nicest, most amazing things we as a fandom have come together to do. It gives so much freedom for the author to choose how much they want to spoil/warn form, and it also gives readers so much freedom of choice! It's a great system! Not a perfect one. No system is perfect. But it's a great compromise. I don't think people understand how utterly revolutionary the Archive Warnings are, in AO3. Just narrowing it down to those four! (Underage, Non-Con, Graphic Violence and Character death, for those uninitiated, as well as the opt out of Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings.) This system allows the most widespread triggers and preferences to be respected. If you don't like fic about people under 18 doing anything relationship related? Slap that Underage and the Choose Not To Warn archive warning in your exclude options and you're good. Same for non-con. Or Character death! The way the Archive is setup, this guarantees you will not see fic with that.

That's revolutionary! It's great! We should hype it more.

This is one of the reasons why I'm so testy about the Dead Dove tag. I know the ship has sailed, the tag has changed meaning and it is a completely different function now, than when it started. (This is also why I don't respond to the handful of people who insist that my history is wrong and the tag is useful actually! They're missing the point of the post and also I was there when the tag first came about. I'm in the reblogs of the original post.) The problem with Dead Dove is not itself, but that its a symptom of people - most commonly antis, but really, this isn't a group-specific behavior, stupidity is policy neutral - using tags not to find fic to read or to filter out fic they don't want to read, and instead using them to find people to harass. That endangers the whole system, because people stop using understandable, straightforward tags for their stuff and instead start making convoluted spaghetti tags that only make sense in-group to try and avoid getting caught in the harassment campaign. And that sucks! That kind of behavior should be publicized and blacklisted in fandom. Ostracize people who try to misuse categorization tools as weapons of abuse, and endanger the entire system in the process. Fuck them.

To your point, should you add "no self-harm" to your fic? I don't know! I don't know your fic. Does it make sense for you to add it? Do the rest of the tags in your fic paint a picture that might require that clarification? I think the underlying conversation is that people who fearmonger about their triggers and try to use their trauma to bully strangers on the internet are really very stupid. Most stories don't include a tag about self-harm because most stories don't include any self-harm at all. Same with sexual acts. Or crimes. Tags highlight content that might be expected based on the culture the fic is coming from. If you write fic for the alien incest show (Trigun) and your fic somehow doesn't have any aliens or incest in it, it would be worthwhile to tag it for it. Just because people might expect it! Or if you're writing about depression and spiraling and mental health crisis for a character but very specifically not about self-harm? Yeah, that'd make sense to highlight that.

Ultimately, as the author, you get to choose the tags you put in, and in doing so, you choose the audience you're targeting. This is where the triggers as allergies metaphor breaks though. Fanfic is not a necessity. It's a privilege. It's a gift writers give their fandom and no one in their fandom is entitled to it. That's why tags are optional. That's why you can still rawdog fic the way we used to, and read through "Chose not to warn" And all the stories that have a fandom and a pairing and a rating, and then nothing else. No one's life is being endangered, if they don't get to read any given fic. Does it suck to be excluded in a community space? Sure! But it's not life or death and treating it like such is the source of much of the headaches around this.

Fanfic is a gift. If you have very bad triggers, you have a responsibility to yourself to only accept gifts that are explicitly for you (tagged around your personal triggers). You can always ask, but an author is always entitled to decline to tag their work. And they're not being an asshole for it. Social media has poisoned people into seeing any interaction as a you vs them situation, but the truth is people are just trying to vibe.

[locke-writing]

Alright, I've had enough.

If you guys are going to write dialogue involving Toby Rogers/rewrite in any way, I suggest going for a more complex representation of Tourette's Syndrome than just stuttering and twitching. It would give him more dimension as a human being in your stories.

Tourette's is a fluid kind of syndrome. The symptoms, tics, and severity can drastically change over time. Tics can be acquired and/or dropped over the span of months, and can worsen with stress. Tic attacks are also a thing that exists.

Some symptoms that you could depict:

Repeated and uncontrollable facial expressions. This could lead to him smiling, frowning, grimacing, etc. in inappropriate situations. It's rough.

Jerking of head or limbs (not twitching, full-on jerking.)

Compulsion to touch specific textures repeatedly

Throat clearing as a tic

Whistling as a tic

Tongue clicking

A tic could also be an animal sound like a hyena laugh or a bird call. Try to stay away from barking as a tic. My personal opinion, he lives in the woods and hears birds pretty much all day. Some of the sounds have stuck.

Compulsion to repeat phrases and words (echolalia.) This includes vulgar words and phrases, but doesn't always have to be. These can often inject themselves into the previous sentence; it can be both pretty annoying and sometimes funny, if the person with Tourette's humors about it.

If it's bad, a tic could be an action of self-harm, like slapping, pinching, or hitting an area of the body.

(This can also happen when someone cannot self-regulate intense emotions, which is something Toby tends to... not do.)

With Tourette's, one can develop OCD-like habits and often pairs with ADHD, anxiety and/or depression.

The acknowledgement of premonitory sensations could also help write Toby with a bit more depth. He has some warning before a tic hits; do with that as you will.

Suppressing tics is also a thing, and can lead to a tic attack later in the day if it gets bad. Tics can lead to muscle-cramping, joint pain, accidental self-harm, and pain in the face, eyes, and throat if the tics are worse in that area.

D-d-don't w-rite T-Toby like a b-blushing s-schoolgirl.

Something more vulgar could be like,

I have had-popop!-had lifelong, unmanaged genital herpes... uh, wait, no, Tourette's Syndrome. My bad. *laughs* Damn, that one was pretty bad.

Or the word could be completely irrelevant to what he's trying to convey, which could get frustrating with his short temper,

Hey, do you got a lemonhead? Sorry, I meant a l- lemonhead. No, fuck. Wait. I need a... a lemon-a lighter! Fucking hell, just give me a lighter, please.

[eashgirl]

What are some things you hate about fandoms? Just wondering

There is quite a lot of things actually, I know some may disagree with me on these, which is perfectly fine to each their own.

1- I don't like how when some of the widely accepted fanon headcanons are treated as truth by everyone even though there is no basis for it in canon, I'm totally one for headcanons, I love seeing ideas,and creating them myself but I don't like how when one headcanon is so beloved by everyone that it's treated as canon and anybody else who has different opinions are shut down for not accepting that. Again I'm not objected to people having their own interpretations, but sometimes it really does get to a point when I try to point out it's not canon several people would attempt to correct me and say it was.

2- this part mainly concerns shipping, another thing I don't like about certain fandoms is they can't seem to accept that people will like different things as them, just because a certain ship is canon will not automatically make people like that ship more or stop them from shipping those said charecters with another person. Canon is canon I understand that, it's important to respect the creator's work and what has been established but at the same time the amount of times I've seen people deliberately writing hate comments under a post of a ship they don't like, and even create anti- blogs for the ship is insane.

Is it that hard to respect someone's opinion? Even I have certain ships I don't like and am even grossed out by(we are not talking about child/adult ships those are a whole another thing entirely),but the amount of dedication haters have to constantly put down others just to feel superior everytime I see something like that all I think about is how immature that is.

One time when I was thirteen I legit had one of my followers stalk me on instagram and screenshot a photo of a ship account I follow, that person hates that particular ship yet constantly checks accounts posting that particular ship just to write hate comments,they were blabbing about "ship loyalty and all that" I remember feeling so aggravated when they told me that, I instantly blocked them. It's that sort of childishness I'm talking about.

I'm open to discussing about opinions as long as it's a civil conversation, sometimes people just like different things, is it too much to expect some decency and respect?

3- Another thing that annoys me from time to time is the villainization of a particular charecter, evidence from the media does show that, that person has their flaws, major flaws and people act like that person is a devil's incarnate and anyone who has the audacity to feel a shred of sympathy for them is automatically labelled a horrible person.

Now I'm not suggesting at any means that trauma justifies your actions, no one has the right to harm anyone under that excuse,you can acknowledge the fact they are a horrible person and still feel bad for them because they are caught in a never ending cycle of abuse and are unable to escape it, this leads to them committing even worse actions.

Something else that ties into this is liking villains in general, it's important to understand that liking a certain charecter does not mean justifying their wrongdoings, you can like a charecter but still agree that yes this is a horrible person. This might seem like common sense but I have seen people trying to outright justify murder, SA, terrorism just because they happen to like that charecter. On the other hand there are certain villains who are objectively just as bad and are baby-fied because they happen to be more likable, when that person is just as bad.

Of course some topics may just feel too personal for people who have experienced it first hand I can understand that really I do, someone who went through a toxic relationship would probably not enjoy a relationship dynamic between two charecters that can be considered to very unhealthy for eachother. And some people may not prefer an otherwise sweet relationship if it's not enjoyable, we use media for entertainment and as humans we all have different preferences so it's important to understand and respect that

At the end of the day I'm not trying to villify anyone, I'm really not

Thanks for the ask anon! Hopefully this doesn't lead to me getting attacked again 😅

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I will never understand the notion that Zuko was the only one to support to Katara or that Zuko supported Katara more than Aang. Like that’s objectively false.

As someone who likes lots of hero X villain ships, and plenty of Good Girl X Bad Guy ships in particular, let me explain: it's just a popular cope/lie to justify hating on the good guy that is either part of a love triangle, and thus the bad guy's rival, or the only real love interest for the girl in cases of "fanon love triangles" like the Kataang VS Zutara one.

Lots of people who like that kind of dynamic, or simply rooting for the bad guy, are, for some reason, uncomfortable with the fact that these dynamics can get (and sometimes forever remain) messy, toxic, unhealthy or downright abusive, and that the bad guy is, in fact, bad and will do evil things to harm the hero, even if they are canonically in love (and again, the romance sometimes isn't even canon to begin with).

So they try to fix that "problem" by pretending the "evil love interest" was the only one that actually cared, and either never did anything to genuinely harm the romantic lead or did so much good stuff that it balances it out.

Meanwhile the "morally correct/default choice" is always demonized and talked about as a character that is not only boring, but also secretly selfish, controling, uncaring and/or abusive, yet the writers refuse to acknowledge is not the saint they claim he is. That is done solely to make the "bad guy" look better in comparison. Only twice in my life have I ever seen the "good guy" in the love triangle genuinely be as bad as the fandom says they are - Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother and Riley Finn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Pretty much every other time I've seen fans use that argument? It was total bullshit.

That's literally all there is to the nonsense 'argument' of "Zuko cared about Katara even when he was still a bad guy, but Aang acted worse than he ever did all while being the hero the show never calls out." It's disregarding canon almost completely and creating an alternative version of the story that goes out of it's way to glorify Zuko's every action, while demonizing Aang, solely for the sake of saying "Therefore Zutara should have been canon and endgame instead of Kataang."

That's why they talk about nonsense like "Zuko was the only one to ever help Katara with chores during camp, while Aang expected her to be do everything by herself just because she's a girl." It never happened, but if it had it'd make Zutara look better than Kataang, so they just convince themselves that's what happened and repeat it to everyone else.

You'll never understand the logic in these arguments because there is none to be found in the first place, and you can't reason with these people because they simply don't care what happened in the show. They only care about their version of Avatar. The "Zuko" and "Aang" they describe in their fics, metas and headcanons are completely separate from the actual Zuko and Aang.

[redditreceipts]

hi, I’m not sure how to word this right…I’m a transmasculine (NOT TRANSMALE) woman, it’s hard to explain exactly what it means but that’s the closest I’ve gotten, gnc works too I guess though doesn’t fully articulate it.

But I’ve identified as a lot of things since a really early age, generally always circling back to a trans man. Im a survivor of sexual abuse/exploitation, and I would always find myself identifying as the “stereotypical feminine woman” when I was in a worse state and wanted to be objectified, then identifying as a trans male when I wanted to be treated like a human. I figured this meant trans-manhood was what was really right for me, that womanhood was something I only went to as self harm, but recently I thought “would I want to be a man if women were treated like people too” and I realized I wouldn’t.

I support transgender and transsexual rights fully, but I really wish that there was more acknowledgment of sexism. Not just misogyny…sexism.

I thought I was above misogyny, but I’m only recently realizing at age 19 that I didn’t view women as human the way I viewed men as human, and I felt this way because of how I’ve been treated as a female all my life. The way people treat you from birth goes beyond anything a male could comprehend, and it’s so engrained that no one even notices it. We’re not allowed to express emotions or opinions because it’s “too much” and we’re “too loud” especially if we’re not white (which I’m not), we have to do so much more work to be considered an equal by men, we’re talked about in society as objects to be obtained rather than living breathing complex humans, we’re not given margin for error like men are, we’re held to higher standards, we’re constantly forced to prove ourselves in every single capacity in a way men never have to, we’re treated as objects and toys and constantly referred to only with degrading misogynist slurs, we’re aborted for our sex and not given the same education as male classmates and shut out of conversations and objectified before we can even walk, When it’s laid out like that, yeah it’s no wonder so many women (myself included) feel like manhood is the key to humanity. Because It is. Because in society there are people and women, and the current queer community is all too comfortable to bulldoze over this oppression and pretend there’s no such thing as sexism because acknowledging that means challenging their “everyone is valid uwu” shit. Im not saying there aren’t just actual trans men, of course there are, but come on.

Hey :) sorry for the late answer, I've been a bit busy so yeah

I think I kinda get what you mean when you say that you are transmasculine, and I personally think that if that's the best word to describe it, you should go for it! Identity is always a personal matter. I would however argue that identity does not override material reality, and in political terms, we are defined by our biological sex, amongst other things :)

And yes, you are so right when you say that there should be more of an acknowledgement of sexism in the trans community! Women are seen as subhuman, and a woman has to do much more than a man to just be considered a person. That is especially true in the intersection with race and sex.

And well, the trans gender community relies on upholding gender. How many transmasculine people do you see being annoyed when they're being called "she", and they say stuff like "You're calling me she? With my short hair? Dressed like this??"

the recognition of a member of one sex as a member of the opposite sex is much, much harder without gender steretoypes. Abolishing gender leaves us with the cold, hard reality of the oppression of the female sex. I feel like gender is all the pretty fluff and mystification of a brutal truth: Women are seen as less than human.

And yes, I also sometimes feel like I have to be super androgynous to be considered human. But I'm not, and trying to change your sex instead of changing the oppressive systems is like trying to be straight instead of challenging homophobia.

Anyways, I'm glad you're here :) Here's a cat with an octopus on it's head for you :)

[chi-ow-hua]

"How'd you find out about being a demigod?"

Will frowns "Didn't I already tell you? You know...in. When. Uhm-"

Nico laughs, releasing Will from his misery - a rather merciful move for a child of the underworld. Will is so obviously working on being more open; efforts that are as adorable as they are painful and never fail to make Nico feel all disgustingly gooey. Will is struggling but he is trying. Because Nico asked. All his life he has taught himself to only take care of others, his every instinct begging to downplay and soothe and ignore instead of confront and acknowledge or - gods forbid - admit it out loud. But Will is never one to do things by halves; never would've been able to wrestle so many demigods from the unforgiving grips of death, otherwise; and definitely wouldn't have followed Nico into literal Tartarus. So he does it anyways. Even if he refuses to give himself the same forgiveness and grace he extends to his patients.

Will may never believe it when he tells him that he is one of the strongest demigods in Camp, but Nico means it. So what if Will isn't the strongest fighter? He doubts Clarisse could ever be so openly vulnurable without having an aneurysm or giving into the urge to stab herself with her spear. Besides, it's not like he has to be. That's what Nico is here for, after all.

"You told me that Stymphalian Birds were involved. And that there was a turd in the subway. Not exactly a very thorough account" And then, because Will is still used to thinking in black and white and extremes and has the stupid tendency to take everything as a personal failure: "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I won't be mad."

(Will is working on that, too. "I feel like this is different. From my other friendships." he'd said. "Bad different or good different?" "Good." Nico nodded, because he felt it, too. "I don't think I'm in love with you" he'd answered then, because that was probably the truth as well.

So they kissed, because they both liked it; and they cuddled, because they both needed it; and they went on dates, because dates were fun; and they were obnoxiously affectionate when it was just them and Will's siblings, because their reactions were always hilarious; and they both made an effort, because it was worth it.

And Will, who had always needed words and files and terms and diagnostics couldn't explain it in a way that made sense. Whatever they had, it wasn't black or white. Sometimes it felt like it was on a completely different color spectrum, as even shades of gray didn't seem to quite cover it. But he was learning that that was okay, too. It was good, even. Not good enough, just good.)

So this is their dynamic now: Nico trying to get Will out of his shell without being too overbearing while Will (that son of a bitch) is a stubborn asshole about it. Sometimes, when Nico needs to go and take a walk before he either strangles the son of Apollo or says something he doesn't mean, he wonders how Will could've ever fallen for him. Nico is all too aware that he was probably even worse in the beginning - sometimes the guilt of it eats him alive, now that he is on the receiving end of it. But then there are moments like these, and Nico thinks he almost gets it.

No, the irony is not lost on him. And Kayla sure finds it absolutely hilarious, all "and so the giver finally becomes the receiver" and "a taste of your own medicine, mister doctor". Still, it's all too easy to slip back into their old roles. Will's position as head medic certainly doesn't help: Nico has lost count of how many times he's seriously considered threatening the entire camp to just not get hurt for one day that really can't be that fucking hard before realizing that promising serious bodily harm would be rather counter-productive in this scenario. He would be a huge hypocrite if he said that he wasn't part of the problem, too. It's all too tempting to blame his own less-than-stellar moments on everyone around him and hide behind his person to escape the consequences. But they know that they need to learn to open up and rely on themselves and each other if they want this (whatever that is) to work, so they keep trying.

Will nods. "No". Then he frowns, shaking his head. "No, I mean. Yeah. Sure. I guess I'm just curious why you're asking"

Nico shrugs, raising a brow. Because it's you, he doesn't say, because Will isn't the only one who has trouble saying the important things out loud. Besides, judging by his flaming cheeks, the message was received anyway.

And there really isn't much more to it. Of course he knows that most stories are rather traumatic, which is why he doesn't feel comfortable asking the other campers about it. He is somewhat aware of some of the arrivals - mainly from bragging Ares children, but he doesn't trust those as far as he can throw them. He has heard Sherman changing his story at least three times; the number of monsters chasing him magically multiplicating every time he recounts it. Either that, or they are Percy Jackson, which is its own category entirely.

Still, he can't help but feel that losing over half a century in a time-stopping casino is on a bit of a different level. Even for Percy Jackson standards. He is just so incredibly curious about what an average demigod experience is like. A curiosity that only grows as he becomes more and more aware of how his own life is definitely not that.

Will is always his go-to on that front. He never judges or laughs at Nico for asking questions, no matter how odd or stupid. It also makes it incredibly easy to mess with him, especially now that they are working extra hard on open communication and all that shit. Nico practices constraint, though. Mostly.

"Okay, so. This actually happened a few years before New York." Will's voice gets that nostalgic tone that always appears whenever he talks about his life before Camp. He's relaxed, now, all loose-limbed compared to the beginning of their conversation. Nico leans against him, own body relaxing in response. "I get these headaches sometimes, you know. Never figured out why. Ibu never worked. But one time I took Paracetamol and it just. Stopped."

Nico nods encouragingly. Will looks at him expectantly. It takes Nico a moment to realize that... that was the story. He straightens (ha, as if) up again. "Wait, that's it?" Maybe he should reassess his whole 'Will's life as the blueprint average demigod experience'-thing.

"Well, yeah." Will looks irritated, glaring at Nico and the shoulder he'd been leaning on. "Prick", Nico mutters, nontheless going back to their previous position. Will flicks at his nose in response. He doesn't have to look at Will to know he's wearing one of his stupidly triumphant smirks. "I was curious as to why paracetamol worked where ibuprofen had failed me so many times before. And do you know what I found?"

"A forgotten ancient myth about how Paracetamol was created by your dad?" Will flicks Nico's nose. Again. He can admit that it was probably deserved, though.

"No, stupid. I found out that we don't know how Paracetamol works. Isn't that insane? We take the pill. The pill works. BUT WE DON'T KNOW HOW IT DOES ITS THING!" He has a manic glint in his eyes that speaks of many sleepless nights devoted to exactly this question.

"So....you immediately went from that to greek gods are real? Just like that?"

"Obviously." Nico glares. Will has the nerve to smile at him. Fucking prick. As much as he complains about how impossible it is to know whether Nico is being sarcastic or serious, Will is infinitely worse. Especially because most people don't know to expect it.

Nico punches him, because sometimes fists speak louder than words, and Will just laughs. Nico moves away before he can get his nose flicked for a third time. It almost makes him miss the times people were still scared of him (that's a lie.)

"Okay, no." Will is still laughing, as if he hadn't just survived a blow by the Ghost King himself. Idiot. "But when Maron explained about gods and monsters and all that mess I remembered paracetamol and thought: yeah, that makes sense. Like, of course it's magic. You know?"

Nico just shakes his head fondly, once again stuck somewhere between amusement, endearment and just plain confusion. "Sure. Of course."

[system-of-a-feather]

Gonna share the Feathers Ramble from my Friend Group Chat; @hiiragi7 was just commenting on how a line from this post was a really good line, and so I just kinda rambled expanding on it and I felt it was worth sharing here as well

"no one other person will be able to give you "the pass" to use a label that will absolve you of the responsibility to be able to understand the history and weight of the term"

Now that Im off work like, its just honestly something that I find to be a lot of the issue within a lot of discourse spaces is that people are looking for people to answer what is and is not okay, asking for what the rules that they should follow is / are and who is better or worse, more right or more wrong

When really people should be looking for understanding of the purposes behind those discourse topics and the individual stances and the principles that underlie them more than the "should I or should I not" and "is it good or bad for me to do this"

Cause like there are VERY VERY few topics that have a clear cut "correct vs incorrect" way of doing things

Like even if you get to things that seem obvious like the n-word and who can or can't say that, generalizing those rules do tend to work for the majority of the population, but when you get to the really specific fine grains in the rules and the PRACTICAL application of them in non-online spaces, even things like that can get fuzzy and a lot more complicated than "you are racist if this and not if that"

Because with the n-word, you still have to think about the diversity of the "black" populus and how individuals may or may present / look "not black" to someone doing a cursory glance such as those from afro-latine backgrounds. And then there is also the complexity of navigating and respecting inner city and gang based experiences while ALSO, you know, not promoting harmful and racist language and the practical complications that come with that.

(Disclaimer: I don't know too much of the in depth about this topic to really have a stance on the nuances. It's a topic that has recently been brought up that I sometimes reflect on and think about since there were aspects more complicated than I ever considered that were presented to me. Since I don't know much I defer to "play on the safe side of what people with more insight and direct experience with this topic say" and "I am never going to say it and I don't plan to look the other way in any obvious situation where its inappropriate", but I acknowledge that there is probably a depth to it where it gets complex, and honestly, I'm not comfortable having a strong opinion beyond the general rule of thumb.)

And in the end, the only rule I think you can really say is for really any word, label, language, etc is that you can use whatever word you can reasonably find yourself comfortable with saying bearing in mind the history, weight, and impact that the word, label, etc has on individuals and your role in it (which isn't always inherently "you are making it worse" because you might not be, if you are a transwoman using transfemme that's just being part of the typical group)

In the end of the day, use words you feel are justified in using and accept the consequences - good or bad - of the decisions made; thus its important, in order to keep the consequences neutral or positive, to be able to be comfortable and confident in being able to explain your reasoning for using the term, language, label, etc

You gotta know what your role in using the term / language / label is, and to make sure your role and how you handle the term / language / label is in line with your moral compass on what you feel right in doing and that you are doing your due diligence to minimize any impacts you think would be bad to your own moral compass

It's largely why I think people who genuinely acknowledge, openly discuss, and are forth coming about the term "tulpa" in tulpamancy spaces are more than welcome to use it

There is a debate whether or not it is appropriate for someone in the modern tulpamancy community to use the term "tulpa" and thats always going to be an ambiguous debate; but if you are acknowledging the racist and appropriative roots and are actively doing your part to encourage discussion and acknowledgement of the damages done, then you are honestly doing more to repair the damage and bring awareness to the historical issue in order to better the future and you are likely doing so with more respect than most people offer

Thus its not so much a "these people can say this and these people can't" as much as it is "people who understand the weight and history of the term and align their behavior and impact onto that to do minimal harm (and ideally help) can use it if they feel there is a positive way"

You can't and shouldn't make anyone do or not do things by waving value labels around because in the end those things aren't something objective whether or not we like them and they become less and less objective and clear cut the more specific and nuanced in the situation you get

The only real thing you can ask is for people to really understand the ACTUAL background and depth to the words and things they say and do and let them make their own decisions on how their behavior interacts with their role in the history and impact of it all and if they can, in a right mind, say what they are doing is good / justified

And whatever judgement they make with that calculation is really just something they themselves can make. If people think something that is harmful is "good / justified" then they will inevitably get naturalistic results and consequences that they have to own up to. If people think it isn't, then simply they don't have to do that thing

But ya know, that's just a Feathers Ramble of the day

At the end of the day, we all just want to be able to go to sleep with a clear head and what people decide to say and do and the amount of diligence they want to put into covering their bases is a decision each and every individual must make on their own

[nanabansama]

Why does teru hate supernaturals so much

I think the best chapters you could read to get a feel for Teru's dislike of supernaturals would be 9, 10, 72, and 97.

Teru explains in ch. 72 that because being an exorcist is a 24/7 job, he hasn't had a day off in years. We've seen that Teru has been working as one since he was at least 8, which means he had zero time to enjoy his childhood.

Just look! AidaIro even drew art of him staring longingly at an arcade. Poor little guy...

This isn't the long and short of it, but it paints a pretty bleak picture. I wouldn't exactly be able to blame him for hating supernaturals out of resentment for this alone.

Being forced to fight supernaturals since he was young has given Teru many opportunities to see the uglier sides to them, as well. We've already seen some pretty nasty ones in the manga, haven't we? And I'm sure Teru has seen supernaturals bring real harm to people, whether that be through lifelong injury, mental scars, or worse, death itself.

Not only is all of that traumatizing, but he was indoctrinated into being an exorcist at a ridiculously young age. I haven't heard a single character bring this up as problematic in the manga itself, despite the very real danger Teru was facing. Kou admires him and was even jealous about it, since Kou was stuck doing household chores instead.

This just goes to show that Kou has been indoctrinated, too, but Teru feasibly has no reason to blame anything but supernaturals for his lot in life. If there were no supernaturals, he wouldn't have to keep doing this--and why would he ever blame the very people he's working for? They're the good guys, the ones fighting to protect the innocent. It could even be his very own father making him do this. How ungrateful he would look to cast any blame on his father and the senior exorcists...

Eh, now that last part is me guessing a little, but given that we've only ever seen Teru express dislike for supernaturals, I think it's a valid reading of his character. That said, I don't think he's entirely brainwashed, and I could still easily see him acknowledging that what happened to him wasn't fair and harboring secret resentment towards the exorcists. It's just inappropriate to express that aloud, and especially in the very loud way Teru expresses hate for supernaturals. It also makes more sense for him to like the exorcists more by default because he associates positive things with them, unlike supernaturals which have been nothing but bad news.

Teru is a great character in the manga since I feel it's easy to understand why he is the way he is, but he hides so much behind a facade (like Hanako) it's hard to know what he's really thinking sometimes. Writing this post has made this very clear to me. Given that we have seen Teru react very immaturely at times, though, I imagine that his hatred doesn't stem from some super deep and logical reason. And since his mother was revealed to have died from postpartum complications, I doubt there was some tragic childhood event involving supernaturals that made him this way, either. His childhood itself is the tragic event. (._.`)

So in conclusion, I think Teru hates supernaturals because he was indoctrinated from a young age to fear and eradicate them, that this constant exposure to the ugly side of supernaturals has only cemented this hatred, that his 24/7 exorcist job has been a source of great stress for him and ruined his childhood, and that hating supernaturals is not only a socially acceptable form of stress relief, but that it's the only valid form of resentment his upbringing has conditioned him to have.

I hope this helped! I do urge you to reread the manga and jump to your own conclusions, though. And who knows? Maybe you'll reach a conclusion you like more than mine!

[intoloopin-archive]

♯ ° ؂ A LOOK INTO iNSYNC CITY: LOOPiN INDIVIDUAL FANDOMS RANKED FROM THE TAMEST TO THE WORSE.

♯ ° 10 ؂ (🏆) DRUMPICKS / DRUMDANS (for HANJAE)

Recently named by Hanjae himself -- who was visibly emotional when he realized he had grown a big enough fanbase to demand distinction --, the title Drumpick comes from a mixture of 'drumsticks' and 'guitar picks', the two things multi instrumentalist Hanjae always carries with him. It's also the lovely abbreviation of 'the drummers picks'; as much as they have picked Hanjae, Hanjae, LOOPiN's designated drummer by sport, has picked them as well. In their vast majority Drumdans, as they often go by online, seek almost no trouble and cause no harm in iNSYNC spaces, since Hanjae has next to none anti sentiment in fandom; to everyone these days, is undeniable that his talent in dancing, rapping, acting and even producing at times makes him a precious hidden threat.

The biggest bickering happens amongst Drumpicks themselves, with fans of Hanjae, the Idol and Hanjae, the Actor, constantly disagreeing on who truly supports Hanjae the most -- with his recent acting fanbase being quite loud about their beliefs of being stronger Drumdans.

♯ ° 09 ؂ (☁️) ELMOS (for DYLAN)

To first explain why Elmos was Chihoon's name of choice, is necessary to explain that Dylan has been on a running gag with Sesame Street characters since his debut, specially Big Bird, who was his Halloween costume for The Loop Halloween Party of 2019, his icon on every single social media, and the most referenced character by him out of any piece of media -- even in songs. Naturally, the Chihoon enthusiastics got in on the joke too and started to deem themselves 'Elmos', which to him was hilarious. From then on, they got his blessing to consider that the name of his personal fandom, to the point yellow and red are now often associated with his solo stans.

As it's easy to assume, Dylan is the members who takes his solo fanbase the least seriously, running under the assumption that every LOOPiN fan with him as a bias is in on the joke too. He much rather prefers to acknowledge everyone as an iNSYNC, even if they tell him they're only rooting for him -- which is something some chronically online Elmos can get pretty defensive and dragged about by OT10 stans.

♯ ° 08 ؂ (🌻) SONGSYNCS (for TAESONG)

Songsyncs, an abbreviation for 'iNSYNCs for Taesong', is the only fandom that still keeps the oldschool LOOPiN stan nomenclature the solo fandoms used to adopt back in their early years; and now that Taesong has started to recognize and address them as such, they don't feel a need to change. Taesong attracts fans much like himself, meaning that to outsiders or baby iNSYNCs they can appear to be much calmer then they actually are.

But if you go deeper into the Songsync rabbit hole, you'll see they get extremely protective of Taesong over anything, and even have a code of their own for shading other members and their fanbases; although you will very rarely find them starting a fight, you for sure will see them quietly liking and vague tweeting about any iNSYNC drama, no exceptions.

♯ ° 07 ؂ (🦎) GYUGENIES (for GYUJIN)

Coming into the group years after debut, one of the first questions Gyujin ever got on fan meetings was what should his fans be called -- a heated topic at the time given his polemic addition to LOOPiN, two mere weeks after Beomseok's official departure, that parted the fanbase into his supporters and people who were not thrilled to have him around. He almost immediately picked Gyugenies, 'Gyujin's genies', as they are the people who made his wish of debuting come true. To many, it's by now a consensus that they have become the funniest and most entertaining sub fandom.

On their downside, Gyugenies sometimes have an exclusionist tendency towards some of the members or full group activities -- that sort of 'Gyujin is the only reason LOOPiN finally looked interesting to me, anyway' or 'All the others have too many fans already, let's just focus on him' mentality that OT10s don't appreciate, and has spread a littleto even iNSYNCs with a Gyujin ult or bias. It's clear that if Gyujin isn't involved, don't even bother trying to recuit them for anything regarding LOOPiN; they won't tune in, and won't hesitate to bringing up how long it took for groups fans to like him either.

♯ ° 06 ؂ (🎧) AMWOOS (for MINWOO)

Taking direct inspirations from Minwoo's producer allias BANGMFM, AMWoos -- pronounced A-M-Woos, like the radio frequency that came before FM and served as its base -- have had their bloodthirsty days; if the ranking took place back in 2020 or 2021, they would have been on the Top3 at the very least. But ever since Minwoo stepped up from honorary leader back when Taesong went on his 2021 hiatus, to official leader in 2022 and onwards, the fanbase has in its majority calmed down; although their air of superiority still remains, and it runs strong.

AMWoos have made a point loud and clear from their early days that they believe Minwoo is in a whole lane above any other LOOPiN member, and Minwoo's lack of recognition of them by name isn't even drag worthy to them; on the contrary, they think Minwoo's fanservice towards iNSYNCs, something so unnatural of him, is way less sincere than the quiet appreciation they receive by him in clues. The fandom operates much more quietly these days and, seeming to have fought all fights already years back, are left alone by anyone who's smart enough to not poke the beehive.

♯ ° 05 ؂ (🦔) HOJEOGONS (for HAEGON)

Placed right in the middle comes Hojeogons, Haegon's solo stans and the most 'sink or swim' out of them all; they're either the calmest or the most intense, no in-between. The Hojeo in their name comes from the romanization of the korean word for 'porcupine', Haegon's representative emoji and favorite animal, while the 'gon' is obviously taken from his name -- less obviously from the romanization of 'bear', which correlates to past LOOPiN member Beomseok's old fandom name, Gonbeoklies, as both used to be considered a package deal.

Haegon is an open and emotional book in all senses, which tends to get him in hot waters, and Hojeogons are always the first in line to defend him from being misunderstood. Their growing eagerness to see the youngest of the team interact with Idols other than his bandmates has been a currently sensitive topic, specially after Beomseok left LOOPiN; Beomseok as a whole is a whole can of worm's for Hojeogons, who have grown to pretend he never existed as they understand that's what Haegon would want, something older iNSYNCs find absurd to even consider.

♯ ° 04 ؂ (💎) RARERUKIS (for HARUKI)

Rarerukis, much like AMWoos, have been much bigger menaces in the past -- namely the period in which Haruki began his modeling career and fell into the good graces of Knets back in 2020, when they braced his merits as if they were their own and won the animosity of iNSYNCs with their big ego --, but they're still very much loud. Taking Haruki's diamond stan emoji extremely seriously, they know they have found a rare jewel to stan in him; the 'ruki' being often spoken as 'ruby', the crystal that has one of Haruki's favorite color.

With Haruki taking a quieter, less commercial approach to his career, as well as his more constant reminders of how much he enjoys unity and dislikes any of his bandmates exclusionists, has began a quiet change in Rarerukis pattern of behavior; after all, if there is one thing that's true to them almost universally, is the want to not cause him trouble or tarnish his fleeting reputation. Still, don't you dare say any other member is an IT Boy of any sort -- unless you want to see multiple 'Haruki Being The Ultimate Face Of LOOPiN' threads to invade your timeline for two days, at the very least.

♯ ° 03 ؂ (🤓) WIZZARDOS / WIZZARS (for O.Z)

Given his stage name, the connection drawn between O.z and The Wizard Of Oz was inevitable and surprisingly well received by Zhiming himself, who's added the 🧙‍♂️ emoji to his online sign-offs. Wizzardos are the first ones that come to mind when iNSYNCs think of a pretentious crowd. Good luck trying to express even the tiniest criticism of Zhiming's music or Idol demeanor to a Wizzar -- even the pacifist ones won't let it slide without a lecture. Since O.z also works outside of LOOPiN in a duo with soloist sensation NICO, his fanbase is almost a perfect half and half of iNSYNCS and people with no real interest in the group, a mix that tends to attract tension. They're also credit for popularizing calling LOOPiN stans Insects in petty fanwars.

But even the most hardcore iNSYNCS recognize they are the easiest of the solo fandoms to join, given O.z's polarizing history and the old jokes that are still being made about and towards him even by a percentage of OT10s -- to the point that any vocal Zhiming ult is often presumed to be an Wizzar akgae or at least an akgae sympathizer (because most truly are.) They're also regarded as the easiest people to offend and hardest ones to please.

♯ ° 02 ؂ (🗣️) SOOSOULS / SONNYSIDES (for SEUNGSOO)

Seungsoo has a quite notorious solo fanbase, with a reputation that grows more intense by the year. They're in between names at the moment, with many Soosouls, as they've been deemed since 2019, growing pretty found of Sonnysides, named after Seungsoo's recently updated producer tag, NASONNY. On a study on their crazy loyalty and how hard they regard and promote him as a person and an artist, most point Seungsoo's tendency to 'vent' to fans too openly as the main reason for the parasocial relationships between him and Soosouls growing a little out of control, as they take it as 'fresh' and 'real'.

What iNSYNCs agree is the factor that keeps them at bay and prevents them from being crowned the most annoying bunch of LOOPiN solo stans you can find these days, is how Seungsoo has most times eventually come forward to tell them to cut their antics out when they go overboard; be it by asking them to not trend tags pushing him to go solo or to not pick fights with other people over his 'deserved group positions'. He's clearly not a fan of the Soopremacist corner of his stans, as most call them, but doesn't seem too displeased to have an army ready to defend him.

♯ ° 01 ؂ (🌟) J.J.B.BS (for J.J)

To be a J.J.B.B -- J.J's Babies and Besties, as he baptized them himself in a fancall that's now considered both iconic and cursed LOOPiN media --, tick skin has been a must from day one; after all, Jiahang debuted with the 'filler' title firmly attached to him from LOOPiN's first ever stage. They were the very first solo fandom to be acknowledge, with Jiahang pushing the name himself early in his debut day and onwards as something private, a practice that was frowned upon and backlashed by iNSYNCs strongly, and only helped push the 'it's us against the world' mentality that keeps J.J.B.Bs so united and focused on J.J alone, no exceptions.

As a point of merit, you really can't find a more tight run ship: from the chinese bars to international fans, J.J.B.Bs are regarded as 'the final bosses' of individual events and stream parties, and won't ever let anything involving Jiahang fail. Calling yourself a J.J.B.B in the first place is already admitting you're not too far from being an only stan. The most extreme side of his fandom has been not so kindly nicknamed by iNSYNCs as BBitches, and are in a way or another always at the center of the hurricanes -- provoking other fandoms, making fun of other members and overall being the most frustrating people to encounter when they're on Xu Jiahang defense mode, which is next to always.

[writtenicarus]

tw - mentions of SA, r4pe and torture.

so i saw a post that mentioned this topic but didn't expand upon so i am, let's talk about the nest, and the fact neil gets more sympathy for being there for two/three(the times fucked me up too) weeks even though kevin and jean were there for years. exhibit a) people treat kevin so horribly in this fandom and do not take in the fact he was not a pussy, didn't give up andrew selfishly when it came to his trauma he was literally just expressing fear of his abuser. exhibit b) a lot of people don't realise that alcohol is a coping mechanism, not his entire personality. and a lot of people in this fandom yell about how the other characters aren't just their trauma but don't acknowledge kevin.

another issue i see is with jean. now let me address something first i know some people in the fandom believe that neil went through some form of sexual trauma with riko considering the fact he was held down and what we know about jean's experience. im talking about SA by the way not r4pe. because as we see with kevin, riko could not harm in a way that the public would notice without an explanation. i do see a lot of this in raven! neil fics or even fics where neil confronts his trauma of the nest.

i don't necessarily think this happened, but i can see the implications so let's keep that in mind that yes jean did hold him down but jean's trauma was awful. he was r4ped by multiple men, he was waterboarded, forced to break his own fingers etc. for years. disgusting, easily the worst things in the books in my opinion.

and yet people hate jean for holding neil down? he did not have a choice, and with all that trauma i completely understand why he complied.

it just does not make sense to me.

now let's go back to the whole neil vs them situation. obviously neil's trauma isn't any better/worse than them, no trauma should be considered worse than each other. however, coming from the fandom and the foxes themselves. i just don't think, at all, kevin's trauma is spoke about.

like, that's awful. and most of the foxes take the piss out of him for it and honestly infuriates me. i totally see why the foxes and the fandom are closer to neil and so obviously they are able to sympathise with his trauma more than kevin and jean but the nest is the most prominent event i can think of and trauma that they all share.

i just think sometimes this fandom needs a little reminder.

[soulchronicity]

welcome to cj haunted au an au where two roommates move into a house with a ghost that doesnt like company more info and notes under the cut :)

~~~~

Jupiter Storm aka Mind he/it Quick to label paranormal events as something else, it took Jupiter a while to acknowledge Soul's existence. The ghost made it's presence very well known to him when it was getting tired of Jupiter ignoring him. Despite it constantly pushing off the paranormal as something more "logical", Jupiter has the ability to sense and even touch spirits. A very useful ability for getting out of trouble. Though it does have the backfired effect of Soul's more physical attacks having more effect against Jupiter. He has the brunt of Soul's attacks and has the scars to show it. He has a habit of not sleeping for long periods of time, or getting very little sleep when he does. He did it before moving into the new house, but frequent nightmares have definitely made it worse. Its body also has the tendency to extremely overheat for reasons he doesn't know. It has nothing to do with the paranormal, it just happens. He is the only one that can cook. Unfortunately sleeps in Soul's old room, which leads to issues. He has chronic headaches. Hates mirrors, leading to a lack of mirrors in the house. For the most part, there are only the bathroom mirrors.

---

Juno Moon aka Heart they/he/she A fan of the supernatural and things alike, Juno immediately knew something was in the house with them and Jupiter. He tried to get in contact with this new spectral roommate, with success. Juno is visually impaired. Despite this, they do have the ability to see ghosts, whether the ghost wants to be seen or not. Only, she and others tend to ignore whatever he sees due to their vision issues and history of hallucinations (visual and auditory). Soul took a liking to Juno, so for the most part they are spared from harm. They enjoy making friendship bracelets, making sure to make a pair for themself and his new friend Soul. She has a habit of oversleeping which Jupiter tries to help them avoid doing, to little avail. Despite seeming like the more passive of the pair, Juno starts way more fights than Jupiter does. They can also be decently aggressive if agitated. They are a little too trusting of Soul, quick to push off most negative things Jupiter says about the ghost.

---

Grey Spring aka Soul, Ghost, Spirit, and any other word for ghost any pronouns (typically it/he) A tragedy who has been dead too long to remember much of his past and who he was before. The only clear memory being his death, something it wishes it could forget. A poltergeist whose favourite hobby is shattering glass. A lot of money is spent on buying new plates and cups to replace the ones Soul smashes. It isn't too fond of people living in his house, chasing out most of the people who move in. It was murdered by someone he was roommates and friends with. And when it sees Jupiter and Juno move in as roommates, it immediately assumes one of the two is going to kill the other and wants to prevent that from happening. Soul projects his trauma onto the two, seeing Juno as more like itself and Jupiter more like its murderer. This leads to clear favouritism as well as a strong desire to want to get rid of Jupiter to save Juno. (Despite the fact Juno is more likely to kill Jupiter, opposite to what Soul believes.) He also hates Jupiter for a number of smaller reasons, little annoyances that keep adding up. Jupiter is in its room, Jupiter keeps things dark, he's taller than Soul, he ignored him for a good amount of time, he still tries to ignore it while it is trying to threaten him. It hates the dark. Usually ghosts may turn lights off for a scare, but Soul turns lights on for his own comfort. Something that annoys Jupiter, and sometimes Juno.

[chatsurie]

Big scary biker

It was a scary feeling. So now, twenty years after her mother had first given her the advice she did what she had once told her.

The young woman had first acknowledged that she actually was being followed after she had taken the third nonsensical turn and was now to add on to everything happening lost as well. The only thing helping her even the smallest amount that she knew what district she was in.

Kabukicho.

And even that didn't really help her predicament knowing exactly what went bump in the night here. Now it being ten at night this last thing really just added on to her already horrendous day. And even worse, her follower was slowly getting more and more cosy. Starting to holler at her and progressively reducing the distance between the two.

So yes. In Kabukicho at night without a damn way to defend herself because she had figured she could do the way to and from her university without her pepper spray, she remembered the advice her mother had given her as a five year old.

'Go and find the meanest looking biker around.'

Shouldn't be that difficult here, right? Sure she wasn't a child anymore so the strict ' we don't harm children' policy didn't apply to her anymore, but you couldn't fault a girl for trying. If worst came to worst maybe they would end up fighting over who would get to have her and she could make a quick get away then.

Nearly in a jog now, she quickened her steps. Maybe she would even find a street that wasn't seemingly abandoned and she would be able to just loose him in the bustle of the night?

Please?

This couldn't happen to her.

So deep in her thoughts and still most concerned with the man behind her still gaining on her, she nearly missed the opening door of a bar just a few meters ahead of her.

A man had stepped out. There was something about his posture leaning against the railing while taking a drag from his cigarette that was frighteningly familiar.

That couldn't be, right? But then again, she didn't think she would ever forget the way he held himself.

“Wakasa?” she whispered. Wakasa Imaushi had once been one of her greatest fear having lived in the same neighbourhood as him and therefore in the same neighbourhood he had ran his Gang in. Her twin brother had lost some money to him from time to time. Sometimes coming home late and beaten up by some of Wakasa's cronies. Whenever she had seen him outside she had crossed the street and kept her head down. The thought of avenging her brother for all the pain he had had to tolerate never even crossing her mind after the first time she had looked into his frighteningly bored eyes.

Now, that same Wakasa seemed like a saving grace.

If it were any other situation she might have considered that the way life liked to play her at the moment could be considered funny. Now however, she simply sped up again.

However before she could completely reach him, she felt a hand clamp around her wrist.

“I think you've played hard to get for enough time now. Come on Babe, come home with me. I can show you a good time.”

The grip he had on her itched on her skin.

“I don't want to,” She told the man clearly, “just leave me the fuck alone!”

The stranger rolled his eyes starting to pull her into him, while she struggled. “Come on. I know you want it too.”

“No, I fucking don't fucking creep! I'll scream if you don't let go of me right now!” The young woman spat at him as sharp as her terrified state let her.

“And what? Think that guy over there would save you? Baby. He's what five foot something? I'd body him in a second. Don't tell me you wanna be responsible for someone ending up in the hospital?”

God he was fucking gross. And hurting Wakasa? She had never seen anyone come even close. Trying to kick him in his balls to get just the tiniest bit closer to the white Leopard failed horrendously as he simply blocked her. She hadn't been fast enough.

She really needed some fucking training. What if she ended up in a similar situation again?

“That was a dirty move, Darling.” The man snapped, starting to twist her wrist.

That was enough.

“Wakasa!” The scream was accompanied with an excruciating crack of her wrist.

She wasn't able to turn around to see if the man had heard her. She was much too occupied trying to get out of the man's grip that hurt even more now. Tears slowly building in her eyes.

Please. Please he had to have heard her!

She didn't have to wander much longer as a well known drawl was heard behind her.

“What 'cha doing with the lady, man?” He had always sounded uninterested in everything but when you knew him you were able to detect a certain coldness. One she had had to hear often enough during her childhood, while hiding behind her brother terrified.

Now that she thought about it, at least he had never broken a fucking bone.

“None of your business, pal. Move along and just forget what you saw. Nothings going on here. My girlfriends just drunk.”

“Girlfriend, huh?” The experienced fighter whispered nearly to himself, “is that what they call this shit these days? Man I'm getting old. Ya know,” he went on a bit louder, while putting a hand on the strangers wrist in turn, “I know this one quite well. And I know for a fact woman's smart enough to not be with someone like you. So I'll be real nice here and give you one last chance to let go of someone who's under my fucking protection.”

The man who was still holding her wrist in a hurtful way spat on the ground next to Wakasa's feet. “What you got a crush on her? We can share ya know?”

That seemed to be the last straw the man had needed. She had only heard a whooshing sound as Wakasa's foot made contact with the man's stomach, finally freeing her hand as he stumbled backwards.

“Get into the fucking bar,” Wakasa told her an angry glimmer in his eyes, “Shin and Benkei are there too.” She had never seen him that angry.

Nodding at him she whispered a small thanks before basically sprinting to the bar still a little distance away.

She remembered Shinichiro clearly. Wakasa had mellowed down just the tiniest bit, after he had joined the charismatic man. Shin had always been nice to her brother and her.

And now, looking at him, seemingly unsuccessfully trying to chat up the waitress, it seemed like he had never changed.

Cradling her wrist against her chest she slowly made her way up to the two men as Benkei laughed at Shinichiro's despair after the waitress had left.

“He-” clearing her throat she tried again just the tiniest bit louder, “Hey guys.”

Both men turned around, a surprised look in their eyes.

“Who are-” Benkei started a pensive look in his eyes probably trying to figure out why she seemed so familiar, before Shin made the connection.

“Yo (Name), how are ya. I haven't seen you in some time. How's your brother? What are you even doing here. Isn't it a bit late? Kabukicho is dangerous ya know?”

Pulling out a chair with her unhurt wrist she plopped down on a chair.

“Whoa, whoa whoa. Pull back a lil'. That's (Name)? Damn you grew up fast. Still remember you as a little runt.”

A blush slowly creeping up, she rubbed her neck. “Well, I obviously grew up,” she told him defensively.

“Wait, you came in here, despite seeing Wakasa? He did go out to smoke. I thought you were still terrified of him? I told him he should apologise to you and your brother.” Shin chimed in as well.

Scratching the skin of her arm in discomfort she nodded, “yeah, I actually uh, spoke to him. He uh, told me you guys were in here.”

“You alright?” Benkei asked her, after throwing an inquisitive look down her, “what the fuck happened with your wrist?”

Gulping she took a sip out of Shinichiro's glass of water that stood next to her. Her hands still shaking.

“There uh, there was this guy that followed me? I kinda accidentaly ended up in Kabukicho trying to shake him and um, well, we kind of got into this ruffle just a short distance away from the bar and anyways, Waka- Wakasa is currently dealing with him.”

“The fuck?!” Shinichiro called.

“I'm taking her to the hospital now,” a bored voice came from right behind her chair, nearly sending her into a heart attack. God did he always have to be this fucking silent? “Maybe deal with the piece of shit lying outside though? I don't exactly want a murder charge on me. Annoying as hell.

Benkei and Shinichiro nodded as she got up with the two of them, following the three men outside, after they had paid.

Avoiding to even throw a glance towards the direction everything happened, the woman busied herself with trying to get to terms with the fact that she would need to get on a bike. God, she hated bikes. Her brother sometimes took her and he drove like a fucking lunatic. It was a wonder he was still alive.

“Come on. We need to get this looked at.” Wakasa called out to her, holding out a helmet, before realising she would have trouble putting it on.

As he stepped closer and put the helmet on her surprisingly gentle she felt her heart speeding up again. This time out of a different reason. Why did he have to smell so good?

A shiver went down her spine as his bruised knuckles came into contact with the skin on her neck, as he fastened the helmet with a click.

“Now. Lets get you to the hospital. You sure you can do the ride without panicking? You've been weirdly calm the whole time. If you need anything just pull my shirt.”

I think the adrenaline is still doing a good job. My wrist doesn't even hurt yet.”

Wakasa looked away. For a short second she could have sworn to see something like guilt swarm in his eyes.

“Sorry. I didn't realize until you screamed.”

She shook her head as she got on behind him. “No, it's fine. It's not something you expect to happen I guess.”

Throwing her one last glance, he carefully pulled her arms from the bike around his small, warm but most importantly solid waist. It was weird. She always knew he was strong. But now feeling his muscles under his shirt just made everything more real.

This had really happened.

She had nearly been raped.

Wakasa had saved her.

“Thank you.” She whispered against his back, as the bike came to life and just before he started driving she simply felt him tapping her hand in a calming manner.

At the hospital she had gotten a pain killer and something to calm her down, after the first panic attack had washed over her.

This was real.

And she had just been really really fucking lucky. If she hadn't taken the turns she had taken, if he hadn't went out for a smoke? If she hadn't called out to him, if he hadn't-.

Her thoughts were interrupted, by Wakasa stretching next to her, before slightly flicking her forehead. “I can nearly hear you thinking yourself into another panic attack. Your save. Everything's fine. I won't let anyone hurt you. I promise. And he sure as hell will never fucking touch you again. So no need to panic. I'm here okay? You're safe now.”

[cherrytea556]

Helluva boss and how they execute apologies

Helluva boss recently produced an episode where blitzo and fizz finally gets some focus and even some sort of payoff to their conflict with each other. Unfortunately, their payoff is as good as the other apologies (since it technically does pay off by an apology from their conflict being personal between each other), which in hindsight, isn't that great. I'll be discussing the problem with the apologies, not just of blitzo to fizz but also the apologies helluva boss executes in general.

Rushed Forgiveness As Closure

Usually in helluva boss, when one of the characters apologies to the other, the other will just quickly forgive them because they apologized regardless of the actions that they caused on them. An example of this would be octavia and stolas as well as blitzo and fizz. When stolas apologies to octavia for having an affair behind her mothers back, she quickly forgives him after he reassures her that he wont leave her. Sure, you can say that octavia implies to not be 100% forgiving of stolas with the line of 'your okay sometimes' towards the end though it's still serves as a rushed conclusion from how its the first episode of where their dynamic is established, leaving little room for their purpose in the longer term of the story since their main conflicted was already finished since it started. With blitzo and fizz though, while their was acknowledgement of forgiveness taking a longer time (which is appreciated), their conflict is still solved by the end of the episode, with fizz hugging blitzo after saving him from the fire (a direct parallel to blitzo running away from fizz in the flashbacks) and even letting blitzo use the crystals because he believes that blitzo earned it. This i argue is a worse case than octavia and stolas, because while you can argue that octavia doesnt seem to forgive stolas as much as we thought, it doesnt appear the case for fizz and blitzo because despite what fizz previously stated about forgiveness, he seems to forgive blitzo by the end of the episode by letting him use the crystals out of 'earning it' from the apology and that he didnt run away again when hes on fire. Another is the actions that make the forgiveness feel rushed. While stolas actions to octavia was cheating on her mother which would cause mental harm to octavia and already would take long to forgive, blitzo fired up the circus which in turn, causes severe harm to fizz, not only emotionally but also physically from his limbs being destroyed by who he considered a friend. This makes the forgiveness feel rushed, especially when fizz starts to dismiss that harm just because he found out it was an accident (because accident or not, he still lost his limbs and got severely betrayed by a close friend). Both are meant to serve as closure for the conflicts or at least their respective episodes and it just doesn't work with how the actions of the ones apologizing for wouldn't be as easy to forgive, at least not as much just because the characters intent despite their actions still causing harm (stolas flirting with blitzo while octavia was there/him cheating on her moms back, fizz losing his limbs and possibly reputation to blitzo etc...) Hell they even do a similar thing in truth seekers where blitzo apologises to moxxie for treating him like shit, explaining why as 'wanting him to be tough' which is a problem, but not for the same reasons....

Apologies of contradiction

With blitzo's apology to moxxie, he said he did it to 'make him tougher' and that he 'promises to be a different' however, after truth seekers, we dont ever see this change their dynamic is back to square one. This is seen in seeing stars where blitzo joins in on the fat joke loona make to moxxie, exs and oohs where blitzo threatens to kill moxxie after assuming that he shit talked him to his father and unhappy campers where he still clearly treats moxxie like shit from s1, even calling him a disgrace. This contradicts the apology entirely and makes it pointless from how their dynamic still hasnt make much if not, any change from s1. Another would be octavia and stolas where stolas still sleeps with blitzo in the EXACT same location that octavia heard her mother yelled about in episode 2 (him and stella's bed), again contradicting his apology to octavia as he doesnt even think of her while engaging in his affair further (not even sleeping in a different area mind you), making the apology, especially octavias forgiveness feel pointless because the characters dont change from it, they revert back to their old selves in order for the plot to move foward. And speaking of plot...

Stale bread of screentime

From episode 2 onward, stolas and octavias conflict is already finished at that point, making it hard to come up with new conflict for them. So with that problem, they just repeat the arc again with octavia running away because her dad ignored her to yell at stella and a future one where they seem to have the exact same conflict again but with lying (though i wont spoil it because it's a leak and should be talked about when the episode released). This causes their dynamic to become stale and just not engaging to watch because of them repeating the same arc again with stolas doing something to mess up, him apologizing for it and all is forgiven until the next time we see them together. It gets old fast. Similar state with fizz and blitzo from how the s2 premeire/trailer show blitzo and fizz dancing in an implied romantic sense, only for fizz to stab blitzos back by taking his key (as seen here):

And while it makes sense from their dynamic in s1, episode 6 of s2 coming out before this does make it questionable whether or not their gonna repeat the same thing again despite the conflict already being solved. And while you can argue this might make sense in different contexts (like him taking blitzos keys for the music concert episode in a i guess jokesy way than malice one), it still leaves a concern of how their gonna play that dynamic for future episodes because if their repeating it, then its stale and pointless from how they couldve just made fizz not forgive blitzo at all and it wouldve flowed better narratively but if they immediately make them jokesy towards each other like those kinds of 'sus' friends then it would make it even more rushed (not to mention how he doesnt need blitzos key when he has ozzie but idk, maybe they'll give an explaination in that episode if that scene appears there). This would also be the case with blitzo and moxxie as well but in a different sense, that sense being that their dynamic from s1 would become stale, especially from blitzo's apology where it implies that they'll be some sort of growth in their relationship.

All in all, helluva boss handles apologies not as greatly from its rushness, contradictions to the apology and how it would uncut their future dynamic together in the upcoming episodes.