#the only issue is the grief has carried on to real life

[aihoshiino]

If Ai had lived, what kind of parent do you think she would have been to teenage Aqua and Ruby?

luckily for you anon, I have spent a truly healthy [<- lie] amount of time thinking about this!!! This is going to inevitably dip into how Ruby and Aqua are both changed by having her in their lives just because that obviously matters to how she and the twins interact but... honestly at this point if you're following me, my bi-weekly unhinged essays about the Hoshinos are what you're here for.

Also worth noting before I get into it that I'm purposely not thinking too hard about Current Things in the manga like the documentary Gotanda was working on or the DVDs........ we know so little about them I can't really factor them into my rambles here lol so consider this just my most ideal happy end AU for the Hoshinos.

Anyway, I think it goes without saying that Ai would continue being an excellent mom to Aqua and Ruby. There would likely be some bumps in the road following B-Komachi's dome performance as her fame and increased demand puts pressure on her time and energy but Ai's priority is and will always be her babies so I can definitely see her and Miyako having a Stern Talk with Ichigo at some point to make sure Ai isn't overbooked to the extent that she can't spend time with them lol.

I also have a totally self indulgent AU based on Emiya Gohan that lives in my head, based around the framing device of Ai wanting to learn how to cook so she can make proper food for the twins as they grow up... my read of Ai is that she has a lot of issues relating to food security as a result of the abuse & neglect she went through, so being able to make good food for her own children and sort of rewrite her own relationship with food and cooking would be really healing for her.

Something also interesting to consider is the question of whether Ai would have been able to work through enough of her baggage regarding expressing her love to Aqua and Ruby... it takes such a desperate a raw moment for her to finally conquer that fear in canon that it's hard for me to imagine it happening in anything less than an equally cathartic moment, you know? At the same time, I really love the idea of Ai's slow progress towards healing eventually allowing her to do it without that kind of urgent pressure... instead of dying, Ai lives so hard she can eventually overcome that fear by her own strength!!!

I also think there would be a lot more moments like Ai and Ruby's dance with both of the twins – moments of Ai helping them both to untangle the trauma and baggage they carry from their past lives just through the simple act of loving and supporting them as their mother. Both Ruby and Aqua are explicitly described as being children "who never had a mother in the real sense" before their rebirth – for Sarina, she suffered the emotional abuse and neglect of living with a toxic mother who centered and prioritized her own feelings of grief and pain to such a degree that she completely abandoned her dying daughter. For Gorou, he grew up in the shadow of his mother's death as a result of childbirth complications, blaming himself and carrying the burden of his grandparents' grief and expectations in ways that are implied to have strained his relationships with them and left him without a real mother in his life.

Not only is this a healing experience for the twins, it's also ugely cathartic for Ai, too. As I've mentioned before, Ruby's "it's okay for me to dance!" scene with Ai is soooo incredibly powerful because it's about these two victims of toxic motherhood finding safety, healing and empowerment in the wholly loving and supportive parent/child relationship they build together. In general, the Hoshino family is a safe place where these three people who suffered abuse, neglect and the absence of loving mothers could find a place to heal and be loved.

Because of this, while I don't think that Aqua and Ruby would be hugely different on the surface going into their teens, a ton of stuff under the hood would be massively impacted. I like to think that growing up with Ai as a positive influence in their lives would have allowed them to essentially lay Gorou and Sarina to rest much sooner than in canon – not to forget or erase those memories, necessarily, but to definitively move on as their own people, having purified Gorou and Sarina's lingering regrets and trauma and being able to wholeheartedly embrace their new happiness as Aqua and Ruby.

This also means that they both have a much healthier relationship with Ai, in a lot of ways. I don't think they'll ever stop putting her on a bit of a pedestal but more in the way that a lot of people do if they grow up with a loving and good mom. On that note, I also like to think that with Gorou's weird baggage not causing such a conflict that Aqua might actually start calling Ai "mom"....... it makes me so depresso that he never did.....!!!

Without the weight of Ai's death hanging over them and her full and loving support at their backs, Aqua and Ruby still find their way into the entertainment industry, though for different reasons. Without his guilt getting in the way of doing things he enjoys, Aqua can admit to himself that he enjoys acting and tentatively pursues it through his childhood as the protégé of Gotanda again but in happier circumstances. He has similar initial hurdles as he does in canon wrt comparing himself negatively to Ai and underselling his strengths, but Ai would have a good talk with him about valuing what he brings to the table and not worrying about matching up to anyone else. Eventually, he becomes pretty focused on like, weirdo ass self produced projects he does a lot of the work on (acting, directing and producing) that don't make a huge splash in the mainstream necessarily but are well beloved in niche and horror circles and Aqua's happy with his work entirely because it's his and he's happy to make it, which is most important.

Ruby follows a similar track as she does in canon with becoming a member of the second generation of B Komachi, still driven by love and admiration for her mom but from a much healthier and happier place. Rather than feeling like she has to live up to Ai's image in her absence, she is inspired by Ai's presence in her life, her active support and encouragement and her boundless love and excitement to see her kids do what makes them happy. The canonical B-Komachi gen 2 still come together in mostly the same ways because I love them too much to separate them but this time, they're directly mentored by Ai and go full force through the industry with her support.

Eventually, I do think the three of them go public about their family - probably around the time the twins have graduated from high school, just to properly allow them the chance to be relatively normal kids without the scandal and pressure of being Ai's children hanging over their heads. It definitely causes a bit of an explosion, but I think by then Ai would have successfully transitioned from being purely an idol and would be more of a general household name/celeb, so there isn't as much outcry, but it definitely still stirs up some trouble that she and the kids have to weather.

At the end of the day, though, her presence in their lives would be a huge boon to them and it results in all three of the Hoshinos being much happier and healthier people. This response uh got a way from me a little and turned into like a whole AU pitch but what are we here for if not to delulu ourselves about scenarios where the Hoshinos could be happy..............

[val-ur-pal]

IN SEMI-DEFENSE OF JACKSON <3

Jackson hate is a little forced imo cause he’s really just a teenage boy battling depression and grief and is constantly stressed and anxious about things being out of his control for really no reason. Like you have to remember Jackson has known these people for only a couple of months at this point and they bullied him and Exer made his life shit for a good bit of it 😭 now I love Exer that’s my princess and Jackson has made mistakes but it’s what makes him an interesting and dynamic character, people complain all the time that Jackson is boring and one note but he’s really not if you pay attention to his flaws as character traits and not just “oh Jackson here we go again 🙄”

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For just season 3 stuff so far he’s kept 1. leaving therapy a secret from Pam 2. Not telling anyone about the diary and Used the diary to manipulate Exer (both consciously and unconsciously) and 3. Spent time with the reds as a form of getting information and its kinda manipulation tbh so I just wanted to give my 2 cents on it in defense and criticism of Jackson cause he’s paralleling Exer in a lot of ways and it’s unfair that he gets shit on so much when Exer is loved and praised by the fandom (again Exer is my favourite character).

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1. Leaving therapy a secret from Pam is not a good thing Jackson is doing, he shouldn’t have kept it from her and he shouldn’t have lied that it wasn’t that big of a deal because a big theme in this comic is that keeping secrets and lying really hurts people and relationships and you need to be open and honest with those you love. That being said it’s a really hard subject that he’s still getting over himself, therapy was a safe space for him where he was finally in control and was heard not just listened to. He’s still getting over this and he could barely even talk to Harry for weeks without feeling horrible so yea it’s a really troubling thing for him to think about. He told the detention kids because sometimes it’s easier to be open with friends who get the situation than your girlfriend who you don’t want to disappoint because she was so happy you were getting better and how do you tell her your world fell apart all over again and you’re scared. I’m not saying this excuses his actions I just think there needs to be a bit more understanding here, Jackson should have told her sooner and tell her that he’s not happy about it but he’s also not ready to talk about it just yet, it’ll be good for him to open up to Pam more instead of trying to keep up an illusion that he’s doing great but it’s a hard thing to shake.

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2. Telling anyone about the Diary, especially Exer is not fucking easy at all. Some of you are making it sound like if he just told them everything would go smoothly and well and that he’s the bad guy for keeping it hidden. So go on and tell me how exactly you’d tell the person who bullied you over petty reasons that you might have accidentally manipulated and fabricated their feelings and that you’re the reason he apologized, you’re the reason he got a job and started over, you’re the reason he confessed as is dating his boyfriend and that none of it is real and that you did it all by accident. Because that’s exactly what Jackson thinks he did, while I don’t agree with Jackson’s theory he’s convinced of it himself. For all Jackson knows Exer really is that prick back in season 1 and the only reason he changed is cause he wrote it down. That’s a lot of weight on your shoulders especially the whole romance thing I mean Jackson wholeheartedly thinks he accidentally manipulated Exer into falling in love with someone and that’s a very heavy burden to carry cause wtf do you do with that as a 17 y/o depressed child. Not to mention that the Diary is his therapy journal so that’s his one healthy outlet destroyed and he feels guilty about ever coping using it so that only fuels his self hatred and mental health issues. All of this without mentioning he’s still grieving over his mother who gave him the damn thing and now he can’t even have that once connection he has with her because of course it’s tied to Exer the person who’s made his life so difficult up till now. NOW!! Pause, this does not excuse his actions but it does explain them, Jackson is not in the right here because at the end of the day he does need to talk to Ex about it because, accident or not, he’s manipulating him and he needs to know. It’s actually incredibly interesting how much this parallels to season 1 Exer, Exer who started purposely using his magic to cause harm and then slowly losing control and doing it by accident (all while not telling Jackson he has magic which made it hurt so much more) versus Jackson’s harm being on accident at first but now he’s experimenting and knowingly causing changes to Exer. This is a big flaw of Jackson’s, he wants to understand before he takes action but only in ways that benefit him. He wanted to understand Exer’s magic before he told Pam and now he wants to understand his own before he tells anyone and we all saw how that turned out with Pam and the others in season 1/2 so Jack’s definitely going to learn his lesson. Remember that if Exer got that mad cause he was jealous over petty things how do you think Jackson, who thinks he’s one of the only reason Exer became nice, thinks Exer is gonna react to something as big as this!!

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3. This is a bad thing aaallll around and Jackson needs to stop 😭!!! Jackson hanging out with the reds just because he wants to study Exer is not a good thing but it’s an interesting character flaw!! This goes back to what I was saying earlier, he wants to know and understand and will fixate on it so bad he neglects the consequences. Not only is he harming the reds by manipulating them into thinking he cares and is friends with them he’s also really hurting himself. As much as I would love for them all to be friends again, Jackson just isn’t in that headspace right now where he can. He’s so obsessed with the magic and how it’s affected him that he can’t get over the bullying, he can’t get over how Exer used his magic to hurt him, he can’t get over him hurting Pam, he can’t accept the many apologies, he hasn’t even accepted that Exer wasn’t in control all the time. He just can’t move on. He needs to move on and not because what happened wasn’t hurtful and is all in the past now (it’s been like 2 months since Halloween mind you) but because he needs to let go and prioritize himself instead of holding onto all this anger. He’s not just an asshole who can’t get over being bullied (which like even if he was that’s valid to a degree), he’s so obsessed with regaining control of his life and understanding what the fuck is going on that he’s actively choosing to hurt himself to hang out with people he doesn’t like. He doesn’t have to be their friends and he doesn’t have to forgive them, yes they’ve gotten better and yes they’re sorry but tbh if my bullies apologized and everything I would not forgive them and I’d certainly not be friends with them. They just need to go their separate ways until Jackson knows what he wants. But it’s hard. Being 17 and struggling with mental health (IN THE 80s!!) is very very hard and that’s before you even begin with the magic shit so cut him some slack.

Anyways this was so long and rambley I’m sorry, I just don’t love the Jackson hate I see when he and Exer are so similar but he doesn’t get the grace of being adored and pawed at. Do I love Jackson? Not as much as I do Exer but I get him, I get being a teen trying to save myself while everything around me keeps trying to push me down so I respond in anger and I’m so over everyone being so mean to him. I could go on for ages and make more points but that’s it for now so!!!! Anyways support Paola on patreon 🩷🩷🩷

[raayllum]

I want you to elaborate, please 🥺

Re: this post regarding that it's thematically important for Xadia to have failed Rayla.

So TDP demonstrates by and large what is required for a 'both' (or triple pronged) sides conflict to work, if we have the dragons, the elves, and the humans loosely on their own sides, with 90% more collaboration between elves and dragons. You need a good reason for each side to have beef with each other, even if those things are also flawed in their own ways and perspectives (the assassins were wrong that Harrow was someone who would do only harm to the world, but that doesn't mean he hadn't done genuine harm and, as far as he knew, let an actual newborn baby be murdered for the exact same preventative measure).

But the other important thing is that all the sides also have to have ways that they fail their own people. Otherwise it's too heavily tilted in a "well this one side is Much Much Better than the other" and leaves everything lopsided, which is the exact opposite of what you want.

After all, genuine both sides conflicts do exist in real life. When it comes to TDP, I always think about xenophobia / antiblackness in Asian communities and anti-asian sentiment in Black communities. This intracommunity racism doesn't help anyone except structures of white supremacy, it ruins opportunities for solidarity, and it leaves interracial partnerships and Mixed race kids out in the cold in particular. Intracommunity racism is equally wrong on both sides, at the very least, and it's fucking complicated, for a variety of reasons. (I've also heard from a lot of Eastern European people that TDP's handling of issues resonates with them as well). Either way, you are failing your own people, as well as others.

This is why Xadia has the magical moral high ground - primal magic over dark magic - and why the Pentarchy as the well, moral, moral high ground: introducing breaking the cycle to their Xadia counterparts, wanting to solve issues together over hyper independence. The Pentarchy - Katolis specifically - embraces imperfection and asymmetry ("It's okay to be afraid of things" / the uneven towers of Katolis). Xadia maintains perfection and rejects anything less, covering it up in a variety of ways ("If she is not useful, get rid of her" / "Moonshadow elves aren't supposed to show fear, ever"). We see this carry wholeheartedly into S4 where the Orphan Queen was, most likely, the only one to criticize and question Aaravos, at least at first; "It was a human who saw through the Fallen Star's schemes" as he was "respected and beloved by all" previously.

The Pentarchy is flawed because it relies so heavily on having and letting kings solely make decisions (everything in S2 and S3 with Viren and Kasef; this is why it's actually a good thing that Ezran has the means and encouragement to leave in S4). A lack of magic means it is understandable why they turn to dark magic, because resource sharing has broken down across the kingdoms, never mind with Xadia, when it comes to things like famine. But Harrow heavily fails his children because of dark magic, his actions of revenge resulting in instigating a war, leaving his children as orphans, and susceptible to a world of grief, pain, and fear. Sending them away from the fray is already too late, no matter how much Callum posits "Can't you just make peace with them? It seems pretty simple to me!"

We see this in two of our primary antagonists, working against Callum and Ezran, being human. In order to write a conflict like this, you must have antagonists on all sides, and Viren and Claudia (and councilman guy / Kasef) primarily fill those roles. And they specifically have to go after other humans (Ezran, Callum, Aanya for Viren, as well) to show the flaws in the systems Viren is manifesting.

If humans don't fail other humans, all you have is humans failing elves - and that's precisely what the elves believe is going on. It means "this system fails only your enemies" which doesn't seem like a problem. Again, can't have one side be Too Good, or it doesn't work, and if a system works for you (dark magic) you will have no reason to reject it, even if you probably should.

But Rayla isn't sent away from the fray. She's sent right into it, and more than that, she's there because she wants to be. At the beginning of the series, Rayla has fully bought into the Cycle; not without good intentions, but disastrous consequences for both herself and others, even before she spares Marcos. And again, this is important: Rayla is a Believer. Until she isn't.

While certain individuals fail Callum and Ezran in particular, generally, we see that they were raised in a pretty happy, emotionally safe home. While both have their own issues of self esteem, neither have strong issues of persistent self loathing. It is the societal history of dark magic and lingering fear/paranoia getting in their way, bolstered by the military surrounding them being unable to consider a life without war.

Likewise, Rayla was also raised and surrounded by assassins who were heroic protectors, in a world at war. But what if you weren't at war? What if you didn't have to be at war? Runaan can't fathom this, just like her village can't fathom a world where Rayla was captured or injured or just delayed, or countless other reasons that would've meant she survived and nobody else did. Instead, they deem Rayla guilty and flawed by association; she isn't just banished for her survival - which, just Survival is worthy of a punishment, when you are supposed to act like you are "already dead" - but specifically because she's seen as her parents' daughter. "They thought I ran away. Just like my parents."

Likewise, without the botched assassination mission and Rayla to carry that weight, Xadia and the elves would seem much too perfect. Why should they care if their assassination mission was, in the human point of view that they've already disregarded (just as humans disregard elven viewpoints around dark magic), bad, when it doesn't harm their own people? Except that it does.

This is amplified by the fact Rayla is the only 'hero' who ends arc 1 like a villain. Everyone else can go home. Soren even asks why Claudia didn't try to, in 4x07. But Rayla can't - she doesn't have a home in the Silvergrove to go home too. Like Viren, Claudia, and Aaravos, she's branded as a Traitor. Like Aaravos, she was seen as a liar. "What good is an assassin who's too afraid to kill?" (TTM) A lot of good, if that's not your only expectation of her. If she's allowed to grow and make mistakes. But she never has been - at least not by her own people ("Even if her own people might misunderstand, and turn against her"). They took a 15 year old girl and made her think she had to stay behind and die for mistakes she didn't even make (3x08).

Xadia punishments have to be harsh and unfair, and they're unfair precisely because they expect perfection and rigidness from people who are inherently flexible and compassionate, because no one is Perfect. Rayla screwed up her mission and got Ghosted in series; in the novelization, her troupe wanted to kill her (per custom) for sparing Marcos. We see this in Moonshadow culture in particular, but also Sunfire elves (Lucia made a mistake, but it was never worth her death), and in Zubeia's quest for revenge after losing her family. It casts Janai's statement of "Gone are the days we shed blood for justice" in a new light because that or Banishment/exile (expelling humans) is what Xadia has always done, but no longer.

If you want to change a society / people / culture, you have to give them reasons to change. This is seen most through the ways those societies/cultures/structures fail their own people. The people who aren't in the 'in-group' or at least not properly. (Think how ATLA talked about indoctrination within the Fire Nation and how their own people were also suffering as a result of their imperialism; not more than the other nations, but not without their own pitfalls). This is also reminiscent of the way Ezran approaches the painting's vandalization in 4x03; rather than being angry over it, he acknowledges the way he's fallen short that paved the way for it.

TDP is very interested in a Mutual Discard (how both Viren and Harrow trash / throw out their own relationship) and mutuality in general. But for the bulk of the show (until S4 really) Rayla is our only main elf character; Janai and Terry only join those ranks later, and Aaravos is too shrouded in mystery to really be able to tell (although again, S4 starts shedding light). Thus, if we want the Pentarchy and Xadia to be flawed in how they treat their enemies and their own people, Rayla has to carry the brunt of that load in S1-S3; the narrative doesn't really have any other options.

So just as the Pentarchy and plenty of humans fail the two of our three protagonists, Xadia and the elves specifically have to fail our third protagonist, otherwise Xadia would come off culturally / socially as too perfect. It is thematically in the show's best interest to let the Silvergrove be as flawed as it is, as well as any other social / cultural aspects (Janai makes it so that soul candles can burn in a specific area that's safe, not just wherever; although dark magic is a slippery slope, we always understand precisely why humans are using it) be likewise flawed and sympathetic and understandable.

That's why Ezran's speech is so poignant. Just like Rayla (and everyone and everything else) it's not pure idealization or total demonization.

Humanity and Xadia can fail themselves and one another repeatedly, and each can still be worthy of growth and protection, because it's not about deserve. It's not about punishment. It's about rehabilitation and belief.

For Rayla and the Silvergrove, too.

[writingtohealmytrauma]

5/4/24

she left me 2 months ago and the pain is still so real and unbearable. 8 years of our life gone, she is now a stranger we dont talk, i want to talk so bad but she wants to move on and asked us not to message i want to talk to her everyday but i need to respect her decision's she still hasnt blocked me and i cant bring myself to block her number, not that it would do any good as i know her number off by heart, i managed to get the strength to archive our conversations so im not constantly seeing her name and our life everytime i message someone, i had been messaging her out of desperation and longing for connection with her and i can see by the read reciepts that she is seeing my message but choosing not to respond and it just hurts so much that this is clearly what she really wants and she is trying her hardest to get over me and us.

she tells me "We pushed it as far as we could" in reality she pushed it as far as she wanted. she tells me that she wants to have a family and she doesnt see a future with us after 8 years so she needs to leave me and find someone else to have a family with. she's 26 and wants to have kids before 30? so she cant waste any more time with us. i spent my life serving her, but it wasnt enough. i gave her everything. i literally made her breakfast and dinner every day for 3 years to prove my love to her, i flew her business class around the world i showed her a life she never dreamed off. i was there every day when she got home waiting to hear about her day, i ALWAYS made and had time for her always. she was my purpose i lived to serve her. all i ever wanted was to marry her, everyone use to have a go at me saying "why dont you marry her?" "hurry up and put a ring on her finger" like i was the problem? she was the one that would never commit. all i wanted was a family and life with her. I know her past trauma's have played a huge part in all of this, she come from a very broken family and has carried alot of trauma her whole life that she refused to deal with and that leaked into our relationship in so many ways. i truly believe if she had of dealt with her passed issues we would stil be here. she was not the only one to blame i also brought issues to the table but i have worked and turned myself out inside as a person to try and fix/overcome these and i feel i really did. she had an avoidance schema which was a real issue she would always run and shut off from us whenever things were hard, my mind is constantly telling me she was overwhelmed and her avoidance schema kicked in and thats why she ended it as there was no good reason to end it, weeks before she ended it she was telling me that she was finallly ready to get engaged after 8 years?? im so confused? I worry that she has realised this was an overreaction to a minor problem but her pride is stopping her from saying hey this is blown out of proportion can we try and fix this?? i would come running! i'd lay my life down to fix this, what ever it took whatever love she needed it is hers. I worry by the time she comes to this conclusion i will have moved on, not because i wanted to but because the pain is to great and i dont want to take my own life from grief. does one ever truly move on? will i still think about her in years too come? there is that weird sense of hope that we will get back together but i cant hold onto that. when we first started dating she saw a psychic (I dont believe in that stuff) but he told her that she was going to meet her partner and they would be together for life like penguins and that she would have twins with them. over the years i truly believed that and i made that a promise to myself that she was my penguin and that we would be together forever and have twins and i held onto that promise for so long, that promise got me through the hardest time in our relationship and now i feel its been broken it makes me sick to think that im not her penguin and some other man might be? she will have twins and a family with another man? makes me want to curl up and die.

It hurts so much that she wants to move on she couldnt do it anymore 8 years, meant nothing i know she wasnt in it for a long time i just kept pushing and pushing and exhuasting myself trying to fix it, i knew in the back of my mind that it was over a long time ago and that we wouldnt work in the future. she was my best friend though and the only family ive ever had all i wanted was to serve her and love her but there was always this twisted gut feeling in my stomach everytime i thought about our future, not from fear just uncertainty. we broke up once before for a short period of time and she bought someone back to our house within a couple days of us breaking up my mind reels at the thoughts of who she is with now who she is seeing.

**DREAM

I had a dream last night that we met up and i asked had she been with anyone else i asked her and i wanted her to say yes so i could hate her and move forwards in my dream she told me after a week of us separating that she had been sleeping with someone else she began to describe the sexual encounter to me with such joy saying it was hot and sweaty and that they didn't use protection and i remember feeling such a sense of a rage and sadness and sickness all at once in my dream, the though of her with another man made my sick. **DREAM

i woke up and i felt relieved as my mind was still telling me that was a real conversation and i hated her and could let her go and after properly waking up and realising it was a dream i cant shake the feeling the thoughts of that dream and what it meant to me. now i feel like i need to know if she is sleeping with other people so i can move on? WHY IS MY MIND ATTACKING ME LIKE THIS? i want to know that she is with other people so i can hate her so i can detach as i feel thats the only way i can move forward but at the same time i dont want to know either. i have no interest in other women right now, i dont think i ever will. i gave her every part of my heart and soul. ive only ever slept with 2 people in my life and have no interest in sleeping around being with other people, the thought makes me feel sick.

everytime i see anything slightly sexual it reminds me of her it makes me feel sick to my guts as to who she is with. i was her first and she was my second and to be intimate almost every day with the same person for 8 years is so special. i think its a mix of jealousy and fear fear because i know what other men are like and what they are capable and that she has not been exposed to how feral men can be and jealousy because what if she finds someone better than me? what if they pleasure her better or love her more. what if she is more attracted to them then me? she said to me that she still loves me and thats not that she doesnt want me she just doesnt think we have a future?? which is so insanely confusing cause how can you love and want someone but not be willing to commit to marriage and life together and risk going out into the world and hoping you find the connect you had with someone else.

she was my bestfriend, all i wanted was to be around her and in her presence and i think that makes this all so much harder for me. i feel like im one of those people that is always surrounded by people but feel so alone always. she took away the loneliness made me feel complete and normal maybe it was bad that i needed her to make me feel that way, maybe i should learn to feel that way before getting into another relationship. thats what everyone tells you to do. but does anyone actually truly do that? does anyone ever wait untill they are complete and feel whole before getting into another relationsip? i feel like if you were complete and happy being alone you would never get into a relationship at all so i feel like that kind of advice is a lie? what else would compel you to be in a relationship if you have learnt to be happy alone, i understand women having a biological clock and im led to beleive that some women have overwhelming maternal instincts and the need to have children but as a some what succesful male, if i learn to be happy aloen and enjoy my own company? why would i want to get into a relationship what would be the driving force behind that? so i think that type of thinking is a lie and fanciful.

i feel scared to go back home, i know i need to though. i left the state i live in to go stay with my cousins for a wgile to try and clear my head i dont know if it has helped our made things worse? im genuinely not sure.

im so scared of running into her, im so scared of running into her with another man. i dont know how to deal with these feelings of fear and jealousy. i just love her so much and my heart screams for her day in an day out.

even writing this now i feel sick at the thought the she is talking to somoene else and flirting with them and doing sexual things with them.

i think the hardest thing for me to grasp is her being sexually intimate with someone else. that seems to be the trigger for me to spiral and feel sick.

my psycologist told me that those are grief thoughts and to label them grief thoughts and that they will pass but they just make me sicker and sicker everytime i think of them.

im not eating, im not sleeping all i do is train. i feel so insecure and so scared i feel like ive aged so much in our relationship and that im ugly and un lovable so im just destroying my body to stay fit and become stronger than i am. i worry its becoming a mental ilnness almost a body dysphoria i hate myseld and everything about myself.

she was younger than me buy a couple of years and i know she is going to date someone younger than me and they will be fitter and stronger than me and it just hurts so much to think that.

i get angry cause i feel like she used me and robbed me of my life and my best years and that she never had any intention of seeing this through. she just used me as a vessel to get her setup in a career and financially.

[dniosamu]

you wanted the analysis for stay frosty milk tea? I deliver o7

‘I think I got too many memories getting in the way of me’ your connection to the flags, stormbringer and dazai’s betrayal influencing your every move, even on things they arent related to

‘Some princes don't become kings’ you are, a prince in every way but status. you carry yourself with an air of confidence and power, your men are loyal to you with a thought, however, you seem content with your position now, hence not needing to become a king.

‘Even at the best times I'm out of my mind’ arahabaki.

‘You only get what you grieve’ you’ve lost so much and you grieve it constantly to the point of your life being filled with grief and pain yet you are still loyal to the people who made you grieve

‘The only thing that's ever stopping me is me, hey’ you know this yourself don’t you?

‘I testify if I die in my sleep, Then know that my life was just a killer dream, yeah’ you don’t remember your dreams, so that has to give you some déréalisation issues

‘But the alcohol never lies, never lies’ while you aren’t an alcoholic like dazai, you do use it as a coping mechanism, you do it responsibly though so yk you do you boo

tldr; you got issues, i know too much, and i’m a music nerd

Oh, well. This got personal real quick..

// reading this makes me realize he is just like me fr this is why i run a chuuya blog /j on another note i love this analyzation, it hit me deep with how i relate to this, props to you!

[soloorganaas]

hi there! i just found your blog and i have to say: sirius being bipolar totally makes sense, i'm entirely fascinated by your thoughts and words, needless to say i agree with you and i'll keep reading what you write! by the way, do you have mental illness headcanons for other characters? thank you for reading and have a nice day 💕

thank you so much 😭❤️

and yes I definitely do!

remus

anxiety/depression. he goes through a period of debilitating pain once a month, so he lives knowing it’s always just around the corner and he’s never going to be able to escape it. and then he also has the shame and stigma and very real danger of being a feared minority. growing up and living with that kind of trauma changes your dna and is also why so many people in systemically oppressed groups have chronic mental problems

I also sometimes hc him as autistic. he masks to the extent of creating a whole new persona (think of now dif he is to his students in PoA vs his interactions with sirius esp in OotP). he’s very routine and repetitive (same clothes, carries the same suitcase everywhere, exact same style of lesson each week). his speech swaps between short sometimes random qs/statements to long expositions

james

ADHD for sure. hyperfixation on only things that interest him to the point of feats of genius eg pranks, the map, becoming an animagus. fidgety and restless (throwing the snitch around, playing with his hair). has absolutely zero restraint - literally jumps up to terrorise snape simply bc he and sirius are bored, cannot stop himself from trying to get lily’s attention even though he’s clearly pissing her off

hermione

an autistic queen. intensely hyper-focused on her special interests, to the point of it being a detriment to her own health and relationships. at the same time she will devote herself 100% to helping her friends in a v hyperfocused way (eg helping hagrid with buckbeak’s trial, planning and packing for the horcrux hunt). does not get sarcasm. blunt and doesn’t understand why people get offended (eg telling lavender why trelawney wasn’t correct in predicting her rabbit would die when lavender is literally hysterical with grief). trouble regulating emotions (the amount of times she has a blow up with her friend and storms off, or just randomly snaps at people or has an outburst). very attached to her routines and strict in discipline (colour-coded timetables). also has v varying speech patterns that throw other people off

honestly tbh from her huge ups and downs which always involve some period of intense high and then some dramatic crash you could possibly characterise her as bipolar too. but I gotta think more about that

side note but I think this is why ginny and her become such good friends (and also ginny and luna) - bc ginny is open and accepting enough to not be bothered by how they’re both a bit ‘off’ and socially awkward, and she’s also used to incredibly high-energy family members with intense special interests (literally her entire family except maybe ron and molly). and hermione for her part sees past the mask ginny puts on to deal with her brothers/being in their shadow and allows her to be herself

harry

chronic and compound ptsd 💔 the way he fully thinks he’s going mad in OotP and truly doesn’t trust his own mind, but is also hyper-independent to the point of trying to find horcruxes by himself. extra heartbreaking bc sirius is the only one who ever understands this side of him and can truly do anything about it

ron

literal cripplingly anxiety and I think he’s straight up depressed for most of school. but this is all driven by his family so I like to think after hogwarts he gets to be much more independent from them and have his own happy life and also hopefully go to therapy to talk through some intense mummy issues

neville

some mix of adhd/autism. chronic forgetfulness and clumsiness are core parts of adhd and are made worse by punishment from others (snape, his grandmother). special interest and talent for herbology. he’s often blunt with odd speech patterns and just a bit ‘off’ to other people

luna

also an autistic queen 💖 different speech patterns, doesn’t understand sarcasm or social cues, blunt, intense special interests. and I think she also suffers from depression or ptsd from losing her mum and harry relates to her on a v core level bc of this (they are my otp forever)

[havfayth]

HEADCANON. OUTLOOK.

the fact that jing yuan's name reflects that of sunshine says a lot about his character. and while he is easily perceived to be of a yang type of character, i believe he has both the forces of yin yang in balance. he is wise, he always have the sake of others in mind and devise strategies to keep his home safe. animals such as birds feel comfortable around him, flock towards him because he exudes such a gentle, calming, positive yet powerful energy. he never lets go of his ideals, to go on the path of least bloodshed or the promise he swore to defend luofu at all cost while choosing to spare his mentor from death, spare his friend from execution and allowing his other friend to depart luofu safely as general ( this act of choice also helped him away from feeling helpless to the strings of this world ).

jing yuan is strong, unbelievably and unwaveringly strong and both his mental and intellectual fortitude invariably also protect and strengthen his heart to continue LOVING, and never abandon his grief into a stage of powerlessness from the choices he continues to make according with his ideals and faith, in which most turned out positively for him. jingliu, for example, is still herself despite being mara-struck. thus led him to live a mara-free life for so long while many around him and mentor have succumbed.

that is not to say that jing yuan does not suffer any trauma or pain. he still have nightmares and dreams from the old past with the cruelest awakening. he still experience an immense level of GUILT, remorse and loneliness that came with being the only survivor out of his close peers. he's suffered losses like no other, he's been through so much pain and agony that the earlier years he spent was blaming himself and ridding himself the right to chase after his own dreams so as to solve this crisis and save his friends from being executed. jing yuan is not disillusioned into thinking that the pain from his past would go away. no. they are here to stay forever. and accepting that is the biggest hurdle he overcame.

the matters of the heart is complex and untamable but the mind is far more stronger and jing yuan makes sure to make it so through self care, proper cycle of self-reflection, keeping journals and meditation.

it is this that reinforces the headcanon vulnerabiltiies of mine, because he has been successfully moving through life that he does not feel the need to depend on others ( as opposed to it being a trust issue ). and this will eventually become a flaw on his part because the same thing cannot work forever if you don't seek out new strategies as things age and change.

one huge thing is Jing Yuan's love. his for people, love for luofu and love for life. He too love his old friends as strongly as he did when they were still around but he never lets that love make him feel powerless, helpless and agonizing to force him into running away or chasing after what's in the past. that what matters is accepting the endless cycles as it is, let things flow as the wind and water takes you and experience the new sights along the way, letting go of the sights you've already seen as they will forever be real and loved by your memories. and though they will never be replaced, the new people and adventures you meet will make living for so long more bearable than simply letting yourself fall to yearning the old days. that true strength means to stand bravely, freely on top of it while keeping them close to your heart without letting them poison it.

it is not the fame or glory or wealth that satisfies him after this journey full of pain and sufferring. it is the things he can still love, that he is still allowed to love and it is that love that protects the people around him and carry luofu through an age of peace under his plans and directions.

and only he himself can give that allowance to love as strongly and massively as much as the losses he endured.

[tortoisesshells]

top five 1899 characters and/or top five scenes from 1899!

unfortunately, I cannot shut up about 1899. to save your dash, it's all under the cut. tl;dr: I fucking love Maura Franklin.

TOP 5 CHARACTERS: (1) Maura Franklin: she's unhinged. she's the only sane man. she's suffered more than jesus christ. she's caused everyone else to suffer more than she has (maybe). she'll never let go. she has to let go. she accidentally keeps committing adultery with the walking talking open wound masquerading as an authority figure. stealth pants. possibly understands far more than she ever lets on. The most character of all time.

(2) Eyk Larsen: so far past his breaking point that it's almost comic. who put this man in charge of a ship and 1500 souls? If 1899 is a story about grief, then he gets so many of the great character beats about it. He'd practically dead himself. He's going to drink himself into an early grave. A shell of a man with a single, half-deranged thread of hope. A man who was saved from inspiring the worst kind of dad issues in his daughters by their horrible and premature deaths. If his story on the Kerberos is completely disconnected from his reality (whatever that is) I think he should be allowed to commit murder.

(3) Ramiro: I don't know what I can say about him that you and others have not said more eloquently than I, but: a man who is destined to keep secrets - not only his own; a man who deserves rest but is not allowed to, either by his own moral compass or the intolerance of the world around him. everyone wants him as a confessor and confidante, but he struggles to find that for himself! he shines in the crisis, but you wish he didn't have to. I hope there's a version of reality where he and Ángel get to sit in the open sun and enjoy a quiet afternoon.

(4) Jérôme: local man forced to abandon perfectly good Count of Monte Cristo plot by supernatural vicissitudes and his own sense of rights and wrongs. I think he should get to get Lucien with the hammer. I think he and Clémence should ride off into the sunset together. I have no idea how he and Clémence got out of Ling Yi's memories, but I think something horrible and plot-relevant happened in there and I'm raging against the heavens that we'll never get to see the full scope of their escape into the boiler room. He doesn't seem to be running away from his past as much as the others, and sets aside his sprint towards rightful vengeance as soon as he sees the miseries of his past playing out again. I still don't know what I believe his original plan was - murder? simply throwing the medal back in Lucien's face? Did he know himself? G O D.

(5) Ling Yi: I, too, enjoy hiding in small spaces, though I'm more partial to handy closets than miscellaneous equipment lockers. She's isolated from her mother by the great secret they're carrying between them, from any common ability to connect to anyone else, from her own sense of self. It's understandable that she tends to expect the worst, all things taken together. If all this has happened before, how many times has she not been able to say goodbye, either to Mei Mei or to her mother? How long has she been staring the end, not of her physical life, but her life as Ling Yi, in the face?

TOP 5 SCENES: (1) "Have you ever lost someone? It's like you're dying with them. They can move on. You're stuck." I've rambled at length in the tags but: Eyk Larsen's whole life as Captain of the Kerberos is one great circle between Southampton and New York, over and over, without end. He cannot escape it. He cannot, except temporarily, escape his grief over the loss of his family and his failures as a husband and father to have done something. And yet (as we know) none of this is real, and all of this is Maura's doing - maybe. Maura, rightly, looks as though she's been gutted: this is her grief reflected back to her. She cannot move on, and because of it, they're all stuck.

(2) I am a giant sucker for well-done SFX, and the Kerberos descending through the maelstrom into the archive left me gasping. Ling Yi's - resignation? - to seeing the impossible spooling out in front of her, when she's lost the only other person on the ship who cared at all for what she thought makes spectacle into tragedy.

(3) The multiple-way conversation between Ángel and Ramiro and Eyk and Eugen about the survivors aboard the Prometheus having need of a priest in the first-class hallway: the multiple conversations being had at once, the switching between languages, the claustrophobic framing, that Ángel, who has not exactly shown himself to have much care for Ramiro's opinions thusfar, shows himself instead to be frightened and a little desperate to not rock the boat (sorry, couldn't resist) and still concerned for Ramiro's well-being as the masquerade seems to be getting out of hand. There's so much going on in such a little scene!

(4) Maura, wondering where everyone on the Prometheus went, immediately asking Eyk how hot the boilers run - skipping right over that it would be significantly easier, perhaps, to throw bodies overboard than cremate 1500 people. I love how your mind works, Miss Franklin. You're terrifying. (actually, the whole sequence of Maura and Eyk immediately deciding to lie to each other rather than converse is a delight. for a given value of delight.)

(5) The fight on the stern of the Kerberos at the end of the mutiny: the lighting! the drama! the spectacle! the realization that all is lost before the significantly worse realization - they are so far beyond the boundaries of the possible, and whatever controls this place is not operating by known rules! The many reunions mid-fight! Iben wins by being willing to murder a child!

[ser-rctslcyer]

💥, 🌟, 😳 for billy!!! the boy!!

my sweet baby 🥺 (this is post s3 au where he lives and (much to his grief) he joins the gang)

[light angst-- well cause it’s billy]

💥 : A fighting headcanon

Tanky + Quick

Look, Billy is tanky. His broad stature does a lot to intimidate most other boys who think they can mess with him. It’s also very good for shoulder checking Demo’s whenever things get really bad. He will throw his full body weight into anyone and anything; it does not matter to him. He’s sturdy and strong; put an axe in his hands and he’ll be knocking heads in no time.  

Most people don’t expect it from him, but Billy is incredibly fast too. It comes as a surprise to most just how quick he can be; like you can be upright one second then he’s got you tackled and on the ground in another. I think track and field would’ve been an interests of his (more so than basketball) but due  to his issues with Neil, I personally don’t see him being a huge person about sports. 

🌟 : A secret wish headcanon

Love

There’s a lot of things Billy has wished for in his life and it all boiled down to his troubles disappearing; for everything to be better. The one thing he wished for more than anything was to be genuinely loved again. A long period of his life was filled with faux familial love and short relationships that meant nothing more than sex. His last real anything were the few friends in Callie but now they’re all moving onward in their lives-- while he’s stuck and alone, again. 

That all changed when the two of you both fell in love-- genuine bright love. At first, it was overwhelming having someone who truly cared about him. He’s be a bit of a mess, worrying about pushing you away but all you did was plant your feet and Billy has been grateful for you ever since. You take care of him like no one has and he for once feels happy again. While it’s still a rocky road for him, you’ve made it clear you’ll be there every step of the way. 

There are somedays he looks at you and thinks how you might be his wish come true. 

😳 : A confessing headcanon

Heartfelt/Sincere

It took him a long while to confess to you; in fact he was sure he never was going to. He spends months in turmoil once he realizes he’s in love with you. He worries himself sick, fearing what your answer could be or how he could ruin it all if you were to be. Every time he saw you, it shook him to his core because he only ended up falling harder. He denies it first, desperately shoving his heart away into a box; trying to do anything not to admit it to himself. When he realizes its not his feelings aren’t changing, he tries coming up with some sort of romantic way to tell you but he couldn’t find commit to an idea you’d like.

So he settled, by writing his feelings out on a piece of paper; keeping it tucked in his back jean pocket. It was one normal night between you two, chatting and having a good time when he decided to tell you. His whispers carrying off in the night’s sky, paper tucked tightly between his thumbs as he reads it out to you. He pauses every so often just to gauge your reaction, desperately wanting a cigarette to cool his nerves until he finally finishes. He tucks the note back in and tries not to look like a hurt puppy as you speak. With all his adrenaline going, it takes him a second to realize that you’re saying you feel the same way-- until it does register and he cracks a smile. You launch at him, giving him the warmest hug known to man and its in that moment, Billy thinks it’s all going to be all right. 

[brown-little-robin]

OC asks:

Merx: 🐺 - How does this oc deal with solitude? AND 🌈 - Do you associate any colors with them?

Hestia: 🔅 - How does this oc deal with physical pain? AND 💭 - How is their mental health? Do they struggle with guilt or shame?

Rhea: ❗- What are the highest priorities to this oc (at a point in their life of your choosing)?

Malware: 🌕 - If this oc was an animal, what kind would they be?

Eve: 💛 - Are they ‘good with children’, or more awkward?

Shiva: 🐸 - What’s this oc’s sense of humor like? AND 🐰 - How huggable is this oc?

Grief: 🌨️ - If this oc had a day free from all their responsibilities, how would they spend it? AND 📓 - Do you associate any quotes or lyrics with this oc?

hiiii thanks!! good questions!

Merx: 🐺 - How does this oc deal with solitude? AND 🌈 - Do you associate any colors with them?

Solitude? In the short term, fairly well. As long as there's a set time when he can look forward to being with Hestia, he's okay. He needs time alone to recharge anyway. Dealing well with alone time is a requirement for becoming a spaceship! AND 🌈 I associate red-and-black with Merx, specifically because that's the color combination which on koi fish symbolizes feminine AND masculine qualities. Also I associate him with dark blue, but that's about his spaceship body.

Hestia: 🔅 - How does this oc deal with physical pain? AND 💭 - How is their mental health? Do they struggle with guilt or shame?

🔅 Hestia doesn't like physical pain. It sucks. She holds it together when she's doing anything public or she's in front of strangers, but once she's in private she pampers herself about it. Hestia rarely whines or complains, but Merx (and her bodyguards and friends) can tell when she's in pain because she starts, like, carrying around heat packs and taking long baths and drinking specialty tea and taking medication EXACTLY as often as recommended. AND 💭 Hestia's mental health is pretty good overall. Taking care of Merx does take its toll on her—his depressive episodes can be difficult. But she's got a lot of resilience! And she doesn't really have any issues with guilt or shame. She has done nothing wrong in her life <3 (this is not true, she just chooses not to dwell on her failings <3)

Rhea: ❗- What are the highest priorities to this oc (at a point in their life of your choosing)?

Empress Rhea's highest priority, in her old age, is to think of herself as a good person. Her first priority is to provide for her friends and family, and secondarily she cares for managing the empire in a way that keeps it running without breakdowns. She believes that goodness can only be achieved at an individual level, so she spends a lot of energy trying to be a good person rather than a good empress.

Malware: 🌕 - If this oc was an animal, what kind would they be?

Hmmm, maybe a weasel!! Too smart for its own good, random quick movements all the time, thievery, competitiveness, and an affectionate but sharp-toothed nature? YESSS okay that's Malware. A digital weasel. <333

Eve: 💛 - Are they ‘good with children’, or more awkward?

Mmm, the old-woman version of Eve who's with the spaceship crew is good with children! The other version of Eve, who is a disembodied mind in control of 1/4 of the military's robots, cringes away from children because she hardly has any positive interactions with ANYONE and if she sees a child that's probably bad. For the child.

Shiva: 🐸 - What’s this oc’s sense of humor like? AND 🐰 - How huggable is this oc?

Shiva will laugh at anything. His attitude toward life is one of humor; he doesn't take too many things seriously. He's easily impressed by puns and jokes. You can get a real belly laugh out of him for really good witticisms. He doesn't like mean-spirited humor, though :((( AND 🐰 hmmmmmm. in spirit, Shiva is the MOST huggable. however, in practice, he's constantly shapeshifting himself into spiky metal and back again, so it would be a big risk. and it gets worse when people touch him, so the most you can probably do is hold his hand for a while before his concentration slips and you get lightly stabbed.

Grief: 🌨️ - If this oc had a day free from all their responsibilities, how would they spend it? AND 📓 - Do you associate any quotes or lyrics with this oc?

He'd probably find something very relaxing and alone to do for the morning, like hanging out in a garden if he's on a planet. And then he'd hang out with his (mostly long-distance) friends in the afternoon/evening! He misses them so badly. AND 📓 yeah! "There's change coming once and for all / you makes the front page and then you is major news / tomorrow they'll see what we are / and sure as a star / we ain't come this far / to lose", the first lines of Once and for All, a song from Newsies! the Broadway Musical!

[not-my-final-account]

WARNING: mentions of self harm, mentions of sexual harrasment, this is a vent it isn’t going to be light it’s a trauma dump.

You know those things on Redit? Am I the asshole? I’d like to share mine: threatening my brother

Anyone else and I would’ve felt bad. I mean really, what moral person threatens their brother? Oh, I’m sorry, my brother died earlier this year, he may still be breathing but what ever brother I used to have, what ever kindness was left in him has died out.

I threatened him to make his life hell, why you ask? Because I love to sing, in the past three or so years not a day has gone bye where I haven’t at least hummed. And my brother (who has dedicated his life to annoying me, his words not mine) screams when ever I sing, or even hum.

He doesn’t have any disorders or anything like that which would make my singing bad for him, and I know it can be annoying so I purposely make my voice quieter than my normal speaking tone, and he is only two years younger than me, yet when I sing he screams.

It isn’t the first time either. Just the other day he threw a tantrum (hitting the ground and all) because mum wouldn’t go downstairs and carry his blanket upstairs for him.

My brother learned about this after my father died, everyone was exhausted and caught up in grief and to be heard you had to be loud. So he screamed. We figured it was a phase, it’s been a difficult time he deserved to be a little not okay, well that was years ago. He’s still screaming and he is a spoiled brat, sure I may be spoiled too but I’m not a brat about it, I say please and thank you (I apologised to a table for bumping into it the other day and thanked my ipad when it worked right, this might be a disorder but oh well) and do things myself when I can. I work hard in school and I focus on breaking up bad habits unless I am drop dead exhausted.

He however is a brat about it, he literally started crying in the car because mum wouldn’t let him check his snap chat. He said that mum made his life the worst it could possibly be and when he says that stuff it hits a nerve on me (he was barely even old enough to understand when dad died and I never had a support system because I hid my emotions, I contemplated self harm and sometimes couldn’t eat for days and who has the bad life?) so I said ‘some people have really bad lives and actual problems, be grateful for what you have.’ and guess which lucky girl had to put up with being screamed at, that’s right, me -luckily the view from the window wasn’t so bad so I just tuned him out.

Here have a dairy entry to showcase another example of his spolied brat personality:

‘We’re at a hotel and I’m glad we’re leaving first thing tommorow. My bed doesn’t have a head rest so I move to mums, -brothers name- is sitting on the other side of the bed and I think it won’t be an issue. He gets mad even though I’m at least two feet away from him and sitting on a wet spot (water he spilled) so I wouldn’t be closer to him, he gets mad mum won’t do anything and turns around and starts kicking me, I tell mum, she does nothing, i put up with it, that’s the cycle around here, it’s why -brothers name- is an entitled jerk (all I wanted was a headrest and a place to lie down or I would’ve staying in my bed or on the couch, he wanted the whole bed). Soon I get annoyed(he even says it’s a tick! Which he doesnt have and he’s trying to cash out on other peoples real problems, it isn’t the first time he’s done this.) so I kick back, same thing he’s doing, and he starts screaming, mum tells both of us off. She tells us off because -brothers name- was screaming, I don’t scream to get her attention because I know she has enough to deal with already, it wouldn’t be better if I screamed, the punishment would overule the satisfaction. And a few minutes later -brothers name- appologises and he’s forgiven.

Lets recap: i just want a bed rest, -brothers name- starts kicking me, I do the same thing he’s been doing, -brothers name- screams (and doesn’t get in trouble for screaming), we both get in trouble, -brothers name- gets forgiven, -brothers name- doesn’t stop.’

This is pretty much an occurrence every second day and I hate to say that I’m used to it.

A whole other issue I have with him is that he’s on Tic Tok -not even the good side of Tic Tok- and he bases his whole personality around it. I could and can put up with the barely understandable sayings, I can put up with the adult jokes even if they make me squirm, I can deal with his entitled-ness, I can deal with how he doesn’t understand nor care for the real world, I can deal with his hate. I cannot deal with however, my own brother calling me sexy, yes you read that right, sexy. I walk from the shower to my room (fully covered up with a towl) and he says I’ve got a nice body. I’m wearing a skirt and he says I’ve got a good ass and he smacks it. None of this in a kind way either, I’ve told him about how much I hate it and told him to stop and he never does.

He’s even done things to hurt without meaning to, a couple of ones are: he has stolen my friends because he likes hanging out with older girls, he has pulled all the attention away from me because he was loud with his pain where I was quite and also mentally so, SO much worse than him but no one noticed, he has acted like an angel in front of everyone else so no one understands why I hate him, and that’s just off the top of my head. Unfortunately, unlike him I have a soul so I don’t hold him guilty for theses things, even if they make me despise him slightly more.

But! This is what really takes the cake for me, this is why I was pushed so far I threatened him:

I was willing to give him a second chance even with all this, because that’s what I believe in, but he is on his hundredth chance and even if one day he does change I will not know as I am not setting myself up for that mistake again. It was my breaking point when he brought up the singing, I mentioned this right? I do okay level singing (I could make it so much worse trust me), he screams, I get punished and told I’m not aloud to sing? Doesn’t seem fair does it? Well I don’t think so either, I’ve had enough! So I go to mum, present this issue (keep in mind here that I’m ready to deal with a whole lot of hell, but stopping my singing was one step too far), expect results, and she never does anything. I kept bringing it up multiple times and it gets to the point where whenever my brother says something about my singing I remind mum of my reasons and why singing is reasonable, and after ages of doing this, I finally got results, mum said she’d think about it, and she seemed to mean it! So when my brother tried to ruin this to me, I waited until we were alone and told him if he didn’t let me sing I would make his life hell. Was this a bit harsh? Yes. Was it warranted? Double yes. Besides, even if I had to resort to this (this was one of my last options) I would never be able to make it anything close to near the level of hell that he’s put me through.

So yes I threatened my brother, and no I don’t regret it. If you think I’m the bad guy in this story please inform me in the comments so I can block you ❤️

[craftytragedysalad]

Two dialogues that haven't left my mind since the season finale.

I'm still surprised at how much space Carlos and his family history got in the end, although I still think Gabriel's death is controversial to say the least.

But they tried to show in two chapters how Carlos "thought" he knew his father, but he didn't.

I wish this story had had time to develop more because it was a really good direction to take, but then again, you can't have everything in life right? We'll have to accept that Carlos will have to mature all these ideas without having his father around.

The first dialogue that caught my attention was this one, where Andrea talks to Carlos to try to show him that his father is worthy of respect and admiration.

She uses this sentence above to imply that Carlos doesn't know Gabriel as well as he thinks.

Then we have this scene where Carlos goes to his parents' house, to try to resolve the uneasiness of the last conversation with Gabriel and to invite him to be his best man.

The dialogue clearly shows that Carlos hasn't been interested in his father's life for at least a few years, since he doesn't know that he's been doing puzzles with Andrea and trying to take better care of his health.

My opinion is still that the biggest weight of the mistake is on Gabriel's side because as he himself mentions, he never gave a list of things he did for the Rangers while Carlos was growing up so his son would know his side as a person who fights for diversity in the organization and will have pride of the father.

Then I found myself thinking about Carlos' age. In Gabriel's recording that Carlos found hidden, the year 2003 is mentioned. The little Carlos who appears in the recording was what? 7 years old? Maybe a little less?

Therefore, we can conclude that Carlos is currently between 27 and 29 years old.

He told TK that he came out to his parents when he was 17. In the conversation about children with Andrea, Carlos mentions that he has been having a closer relationship with his father for only two years.

So we can conclude that Carlos and his needs were ignored by his parents for approximately 12 years.

This man who worked in his own organization to ensure diversity, did he ever find it strange that his son never introduced him to a boyfriend? He never thought to ask? For 12 years?

Look, I'm not trying to demonize Gabriel here, I am also mourning his death, but just to rationalize the weight of what was shown.

There would be so much space to work on the development of this father-son relationship that my grief is much more for that than for Carlos' suffering. Yes, it broke my heart to see him so devastated by his father's death, but he was certainly so mad precisely because he had so many unresolved issues that he would never have the chance to resolve.

Yes, I agree that our real life is also like that, when we hold a grudge, sometimes we don't have time to take it back before life knocks us down, but I hope that the next season will work on healing Carlos in that sense, of the understanding that yes, he made a mistake, he moved away from his father, he could have reached out a hand and reduced the distance, but he needs to understand that this is the responsibility of the parents and that he should not carry this guilt alone, as if the universe were with him punishing him for not having fought harder to know his father for real.

I know that Gabriel's death will not stay unresolved. One way or another, Carlos will be brought back to this plot, either through himself in search of a solution (maybe revenge?) or through some event that will end up leading him to solve the case.

I also know that the show is a procedural that doesn't work as deeply into the psychological aspect of the characters, but it would be nice to at least hear the mention of Carlos going to therapy to make peace with the way his and Gabriel's relationship turned out.

I also hope to see more of Andrea and how the two adjust to the new reality, I would like to see them support each other as we saw in the last chapter.

Anyway, sorry for the giant text, but these two scenes couldn't get out of my head and I'd like to talk about this parallel that tried to show that Gabriel was a better man than Carlos could have thought. Even if it hurts to think about the wasted potential of all the dialogues and situations that could happen.

And I will never forgive the show for not giving us an investigation where the two worked together, so Gabriel could get to know more of his son as well.

[juriyuna]

Top five events?

Ah, another tough question...!

5. Halloween Castle of Prayer and Mourning: Went in expecting a silly stage play event; got a heartbreaking story about coping with grief and loss instead. Seeing that Kanagi is still mourning all of the people she's lost, still wishing that she could've done things differently, still afraid that the people she cares for will think she's cold or unsympathetic because she's bad at expressing her feelings... (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`) AAHHHHHHHHH. 10/10; gonna have to reread it again this Halloween.

4. Yukari Miyuri's Current Training!: For what sounds like a jokey premise, it's a surprisingly good story! The writers perfectly nailed that awkward neurodivergent teenager feeling of "i accidentally got carried away talking about a special interest of mine and weirded my friends out; oh god i can never speak to any of them ever again" OTL... and the subject of fetishism (including the shame Those sorts of feelings can bring, particularly for queer kids) was handled quite well.

I loved the message of "there's nothing wrong with liking "weird" things; being strange or different doesn't make you a bad person" it had. Sure, maybe the things you're into are niche or unusual, but as long as you do your best to be mindful of when and where you bring it up, who cares? Be cringe but free! Real friends will love you for who you are!!

3. Please, Yuna-san!: We see a lot of Promised Blood's troubled, violent aspects, so getting fluffy slice-of-life with them was an enjoyable change of pace. It's nice to get to see PB's softer side, and it was fun to see how the group dealt with everyone's little everyday troubles. This event released at the same time as ch.7, so it offered some much-needed sweetness to balance out the suffering. Sakuya... ;_;

also Juri's issues with studying (and completely forgetting all 7 of the book reports she'd gotten as homework until 2 hours before they're due) are a huge ADHD mood. RIP little buddy I feel you; hang in there _(:3 」∠)_

2. Kagura San Wants To Be Honest: One of my favorite aspects of magireco is how it takes well-worn character tropes and subverts/expands upon them, and this event certainly delivers! A cute little story that offers some good insight on San. I really liked getting to see more of her hidden anxious side here-- she's SO painfully self-aware and constantly second-guessing everything, but covers it up by putting on a stern, unshakable front because she doesn't want to come off as childish. (This only backfires sometimes.)

Watching her fuck up a social interaction (something she'd like to believe she's good at, but still struggles with), panic over how jarring that must have been, and then fuck the situation up even more trying to rectify her mistake was way too real. Same with the conflict of "wow that was really weird of me but it happened hours ago; should I apologize or would I just make it even weirder if I brought it up now?" orz... I love when magireco dips into mundane, everyday struggles like that; it makes the characters feel very human.

1. Crimson Resolve: First place has gotta go to the story that truly got me into magireco hell. :') It's actually the event I was looking forward to most back when the NA server was alive! I started playing NA shortly after CR came out on JP (late 2019), and seeing all of the cool fanart for it on twitter had me very eager to get to Arc 2. I read the initial fan translation for it on reddit/pastebin back in December 2020, and my fate has been sealed ever since.

I'm not sure if I can articulate why I like it as much as I do. All of the characters in it quickly became favorites of mine (including an unexpected NPC... 🦇); something about their personalities, relationships, internal conflicts, and designs just does it for me. Couple that with a setting and tone that remind me of a blend of two of my other favorite series (DOGS: Bullets & Carnage and Kill la Kill), sprinkle in some animal motifs, and CR may as well have been meticulously grown in a lab to be my own personal catnip.

Bloody magical girl gang warfare is not an itch I knew I had, but now that it has been scratched, I think I've been altered on a molecular level.

[its-a-humanriot]

Give us a rundown on your OCs and I can send some OC asks! (Name, bio, visual reference if possible, the world around them, trivia)

oh thanks friend, that's so kind! I hope it's okay that I answer this publicly cause I actually can't remember if I have done public bios for them anywhere

so both my main current OCs are protagonist characters from the Fallout games (Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas respectively, although their stories do cross over into the plots of the other games)

first up - Billie Morgan! (Lone Wanderer, FO3)

(above art by @its-sixxers of her around FO3 timeline - my pfp by @atomitron is her later in life around FO4 events)

Billie grows up in Vault 101 as the daughter of the vault doctor James Morgan, and all throughout her childhood she really feels the pressure to conform and be an upstanding citizen and follow in her father's footsteps to train to be a doctor. However not long after she turns 19, she wakes up to find her father having left the vault to the supposedly uninhabitable nuclear wasteland outside. Forced to leave the vault in the following chaos, Billie discovers that everything she was told growing up was a lie - that the world outside the vault is inhabitable (if unfriendly, to say the least), and that she and her father actually came from the wasteland to live in the vault when she was a baby following her mother's death.

From there Billie has to explore the wasteland to try and find her father again, and after his death eventually follows through on his dream of bringing clean water to the wasteland with the help of the Brotherhood of Steel. The anger and frustration of being lied to her whole life by her dad does take a toll on her though, as well as her dislike for becoming this recognisable hero-figure in the Capital wasteland. She also suffers after-effects of the massive irradiation she gets from reactivating the water purifier that her dad helped to build, gaining a mutation that is something of a double-edged sword - it increases the rate of her cell regeneration when exposed to radiation, increasing her healing rate, but it also consumes her body's energy stores so causes wasting of her muscles. She eventually has to leave the Capital area after being kicked out of the BoS, so she moves north and works in secrecy with the Railroad to help synths find a life of freedom (where she then crosses into the events of Fallout 4).

Lots of Billie's journey is about grief and how she reacts to things not being how they initially seem to her - about growing and realising that 'good' and 'bad' are not as simple or clear cut in real life as they are in stories. It's also about her finding the freedom to be the version of herself that she feels most comfortable in after having to be different things for different people throughout her life.

Billie trivia: she's actually a really good mechanic and inventor, but a terrible cook. She also has an unusual accent (compared to most people in the wasteland) due to the isolated nature of the vault where she grew up.

---

next - Rylan "Rye" Reed (Courier Six, Fallout: New Vegas)

(original art by @kharonion)

Rye doesn't remember a whole lot before he got mugged of the package he was carrying, shot in the head, and left in a shallow grave to die. The head shot leaves him with multiple physical mental issues including bouts of aphasia (not being able to speak), migraines, and impaired vision and hearing on his left side, as well as anisocoria (one pupil much larger than the other). His mental health also suffers and he thinks of himself for a long time as a 'dead man who hadn't stopped walking yet'. As his attacker had robbed him not only of his delivery package but of his life and his memories, he sets out to find him and gets embroiled in the conflict for who holds the power in New Vegas. Eventually,

Rye's journey is really all about the complete obliteration of who he used to be before and how he eventually rebuilds a new version of himself, with all the loss and fresh starts that come with it. It's also about the collapse of the way things were and the pain of change.

Rye trivia: when Rye is first recovering from his headshot wound, he learns sign language due to his initial inability to speak. even after he recovers, he tends to still use it a lot. He also has an aversion to mirrors and touch for a long time.

-

I have some other OCs in development, but these are my main two for now! Thanks so much!

[septembersghost]

it's almost as if everyone involved in the production of better call saul inherently understands that jimmy getting life in federal prison is a shitty ending that should not have happened, otherwise they wouldn't be engaged in willful denial of it. i've been thinking more and more that the finale is not going to age well once enough time passes for people to think about it objectively. it's sad because this was my favorite show but it is what it is

this has been in my inbox since august 22, and i think i've answered it in my head a hundred times, and every time the response is inadequate. that said, i get where you're coming from and think you're entitled to it.

the post i wrote a little while ago about kim exemplifies my biggest issue with the show's final episodes, but i've also been clear on my very real issues with the prison ending and the lack of middle ground (ie: did it have to be seven years or LIFE? why did they feel the need to use adx, which is hell on earth, and not the place someone like jimmy deserves to be incarcerated? the fact that jimmy only got all or nothing testimony, rather than a nuanced examination of both his trauma and his culpability, etc) - i understand why they felt prison was necessary, but i disagree with the way it was presented. i also still get stuck on the fact that it doesn't feel like a proper ending to THIS story. it feels like an epilogue to breaking bad, and maybe that's by design, but it was jarring for me to be taken out of bcs the way we were, to have so little of our protagonists in those final episodes.

i'll reiterate that i wish so much that peter had given kim a flashback, i feel like there is such a dearth of her in those last episodes, and there's this sense i have of mourning her terribly despite her appearances onscreen, most of which are nearly silent. and i'm never going to be comfortable with framing prison as a happy ending. the american prison complex is inhumane and corrupt, and they did a 180 of sorts on its thematic impact from what it meant in this universe previously. the mutual i was discussing kim with brought this up - how exactly does jimmy heal and reclaim his identity in a situation where he has no free will? where every choice is made for him, and he is sentenced to the punishment of the system for the rest of his life? i know every single person involved keeps saying he'll get out, but that's an intentional misunderstanding of what they themselves constructed, because that's not how the federal system works. we have to suspend disbelief so far - which i support! give them any hope we can - but on some level, we know that's not going to happen. if they'd emphasized what a tragedy the ending is, i'd have less cognitive dissonance about it, but the idea of prison ever being "happy" has driven me further from it. they earn their love back and yet can never truly have that. the cost is immense.

since a little over a month has passed now, i will admit that as time has passed, i myself have become less okay with it the more i've ruminated over it. it was my favorite show too, which is saying a LOT. i have unending love and respect for this show's actors and writers and directors, and i am so grateful to have had it and experienced it. my respect for them is not undermined by critically disagreeing with some key points about the last run of episodes, but it does carry a particular sadness. it shadows a lot of the story in a way that, for me, is much less fulfilling than the romanticism of, say, jesse's escape and walt's blaze of glory death. it feels like they were trying to get some element of that, but swung too far in the direction of punishment, which is not the same as atonement. there is romanticism in the last moments with kim, but the grief is profound.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Problem is Chas will make Paddy’s suicide attempt all about herself as usual

I know that's my fear, as I said.

Chas makes everything about herself. That's the thing that always annoyed me about how she treated Aaron's mental health issues. I mean sure she was technically concerned for her son that he might hurt himself whenever something happened that might make him feel down and depressed. But it always felt more like his issues were inconvenient for her. It was so hard on her to have to worry about him and she just couldn't be dealing with that. She never cared about him enough to really let him feel his feelings and actually process them. She just wanted to force him to be better so she could get on with her life. I don't want them to do something similar to Paddy.

I mean it was already sort of like that with Grace. Paddy wasn't grieving the same way she was and she got so annoyed and frustrated with him. And yeah, she was grieving too and it might have been worse for her since she's the one who carried Grace and gave birth but she always acted like Paddy's personal grief was less than hers or inconvenient to hers or that he wasn't doing it right. Aside from them being generally annoying during the whole Grace story, this is where she really started to get on my nerves.

If they want to use this story at all as a plot point for Chas's redemption arc, I wish they'd use it as a way for people to call her out on her behavior and how she made all of this more difficult for Paddy by insisting that she move back in and giving him no real options when it comes to Eve. Like she could have arranged it with Vinny for Paddy to take Eve and Bear and live in the Mill while she stayed at the pub but work out a system for Eve to make sure they both got to spend time with her. But her only option for him seems to be that he just has to leave and then who knows how she'd be about Eve. She still refuses to really take responsibility for her actions. And that would be one benefit of this Paddy story for her. To have her confront some of her behavior and have it be a bit of a wake up call that she's treated people horribly and that she has been incredibly selfish the way she's gone about everything.

Do I think any of that will happen? Probably not.