#this is genuinely mental illness at this point but writing these brings me. so much delight

[foursaints]

“I don’t care what [Barty] says, Dumbledore’s not stupid”: On Barty as Machiavel

i think we're all forgetting the moment where harry explicitly draws a parallel between barty & remus and i wrote the world’s longest post about it 

under a close reading, moody!barty operates in a manner that is SO distinct from canon!moody, and i think it’s made especially apparent in the way he interacts with students & the virtues he emphasizes in his lessons. even when disguised, barty has a machiavellian tendency that comes through consistently in several different moments. 

i think this quote is a weaker example, but “very tactful” is NOT something that would be used to describe canon!moody under any circumstances. c!moody’s lack of social tact is a known characteristic, and barty uses his tactless reputation to get away with his machinations (see: the dustbin excuse, breaking into snape’s office, even the ferret to an extent).

on the other hand, BARTY is clever and subtle and manipulative, and we see this coming through in how he handles neville. the biggest difference between him and c!moody is the way that barty!moody tends to openly value or praise Cleverness & Craftiness above more moody-ish virtues like bravery, loyalty, or Taking Care of His Students’ Safety… but i think the most interesting part of all this is the way that harry reacts to it.

the hp books notoriously do this clumsy thing where the morality is starkly Black/White (as ursula leguin rightfully criticized). but seemingly arbitrary categories like “gryffindor” or “slytherin” are also conflated with this strict Good/Evil dichotomy. which results in these random-ass traits like “brave 😎🦁” and “cunning 💀🐍” also taking on moral associations within the world of the text (jkr has also done this with physical traits & racial stereotypes, which is vile) 

but an overarching theme in hp is harry grappling with this dumbass in-world black/white morality & unlearning part of it (ex: snape, the epilogue w albus severus about slytherin). but i think it’s sooo interesting that one of the few characters (aside from snape & dumbledore) to demonstrate & valorize a machiavellian tendency AND be admired for it (by harry) is LITERALLY barty jr. 

like! barty’s tact is not a good thing in-canon! he uses his tact to get away with murder & torture & elaborate terrorist plots (he’s part of a group of death eaters described as having "managed to talk their way out of azkaban” p. 527) but i looove that the same trait which allows him to do all sorts of Dastardly Evil is cast as positive and remus-like in this moment. obviously i don’t think jkr was doing of this on purpose, but i love how these little things are unintentionally more compelling than whatever the hell she was trying to do with snape. and it goes deeper!!

this moment is especially telling of barty’s character, to me. subbing out the names, “I don’t care what [Barty] says… Dumbledore’s not stupid” is a CRAZY line. 

it’s lowkey THE barty!moody thesis in comparison to c!moody: nothing we’ve seen from c!moody would even remotely suggest that he’d EVER imply that dumbledore is stupid. (c!moody adopts the “it’s imperative that we blindly trust dd’s mysterious plans” attitude that most of the adults in harry’s life take, that hermione re-emphasizes here). but barty’s attitude is something that harry heavily fucks with in this moment!! 

that’s all i really have to say about The Implications or whatever. but i want to call more attention to moments in canon where barty’s tendencies shine through his disguise because (unlike most marauders characters) his personality is really fleshed-out. especially this aspect of it. my silly 

i. "mind works the right way, granger"

barty speaking about dumbledore like he’s stupid (💀) is enjoyable for several reasons up to & including how big-dicked it is of him, but most importantly i think it’s symptomatic of an overarching theme of his character. in GOF, barty has a tendency to take stock of the people around him, according to what appears to be a really concrete & consistent set of internal values: he values cleverness matched with a certain degree of ruthlessness. 

this bit with hermione is fun. there are about ~6-7 other instances where he praises cleverness, but that’s not really a unique or noteworthy thing to value? but the phrasing in this quote is my favorite. i know that it’s in reference to the skillset required of an auror, but the phrasing of “mind works the right way” can be applied to so much of barty’s character if you reach hard. i love that barty’s language almost casts the mind as something rote & mechanical which can function right or wrong. 

but anyway it only becomes interesting when placed in context of THIS earlier interaction: 

there are endless ways barty could have gone about guiding harry to use his firebolt here, so his specific phrasing holds a lot of weight to me. (keep in mind: he’s prompting harry to feel that he came up with the firebolt/accio idea, but this whole plan was concocted by barty himself much earlier. he’s on the “convince harry to do my broomstick dragon thing” step of his overarching scheme) 

in a sense, by “inspiring” harry to do what HE already independently decided was best, he’s sort of… giving away his own reasoning, a little? the italicized emphasis on enabling oneself to “get what you need” feels… unnecessary, in context? i love that THAT is where emphasis slips into his voice because it betrays his values. 

barty’s Revenge Scheme is insanely fucking convoluted, but at every stage i think that logic is there. in his villain monologue where he rehashes the deranged level of micro-managing he was doing to get harry to resurrect voldemort, at every individual step he was following his own advice. to barty, sometimes murder is just the Simplest Spell to Get What He Needs. 

according his own advice, barty sees the clearest path between two points, and generally has 0 ethical qualms about closing that distance by the Simplest means possible. he later confirms this by describing harry’s morality introducing complications as “contend[ing] with [his] stupidity” (676) 

ii. “good boy,” growled [barty]. “i can make good use of this…”

the scene where barty acquires the marauders map is CRAZYY.. for a moment, barty is so excited & taken aback that we see a few of his genuine reactions. i love that absolutely nothing manages to faze him EXCEPT genuine delighted shock over an interesting new tool he can implement in his schemes. (sidenote: he probably recognized the marauders’ nicknames, which is so funny)

that fact that we have a canonical barty crouch jr “good boy” makes me claw at the walls. anyway. i feel that i don’t need to explain how “i can make good use of this… this might be exactly what i’ve been looking for” supports characterization of barty as a scheming little machiavel because it’s pretty much explicitly stated right there. 

but this quote stands out for his genuine preoccupation with it. from the instant that barty sees the map, his eyes don’t leave it— his eye “whizzed over [it’s] surface” (491), he questions harry about how his name appeared when he searched snape’s office (”’Crouch,’ he said. ‘You’re— you’re sure, Potter?’” (491))— all while harry is sinking into a trick staircase & getting concerned that moody is ignoring him.

“penetrating glare” ← top barty rights! 

the image of him getting new information, questioning harry about it tactfully, and then spending A FULL MINUTE silently integrating it, is one of my favorite instances of him in the book… it’s like you can hear the gears in his head whirring. i like that we can see this type of assessment that he does extends to other people, when he turns it on harry and “size[s] him up”. 

AND ALL OF THIS IS WITHOUT EVEN GETTING INTO WHAT HIS LESSONS WERE LIKE

this post is long enough as it is! but all that’s left to say is that barty will always be at his most interesting when you pay attention to canon… there’s another longpost that could be written about barty!moody’s differences in disposition. the jokes he cracks, his relative lightness, and the sheer number of times he was openly like “FUCK the law i do what i want” (while literally masquerading as a literal wizard cop) are so intriguing. but that’s for another time 

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

points at u. how do u play eridan so well!!! hes such a tricky bastard to write for 4 some reason

It's because he's got so many problems and playing him is basically Mental Illness Simulator :') Whipped up a small (that's a lie, it's large and extensive) guide under the cut

ERIDAN DOES NOT HAVE FUN

First most important thing about playing Eridan: THIS BOY DOES NOT DO JOKES. He does NOT DO BITS. He does NOT HAVE FUN. If you check out his logs, pretty much every time he talks to somebody, he has a very clear purpose in mind (usually flirting or grandstanding). One of the few times he does strike up a conversation without a clear goal in mind, it's absolutely disastrous:

CA: fef CA: hey CC: ? CA: glub CC: Glub glub! CC: 38) CA: yeah CA: hm CC: W)(at is it!!! CA: wwhat

He's sooooooo so so so bad at conversation. He doesn't tell jokes. He doesn't know how to lighten the mood. He has no chill. He has no sense of humor. When playing him, if you are making jokes, you are doing it wrong!

The reason for this is because, psychologically, you have to imagine that he is constantly teetering on the edge of a murderous freakout. If he is not, at all times, Being Useful (AKA murderous, sea dweller-y), then Something Bad Will Happen. His entire life is about duty, pressure, responsibility, and, accordingly, at ALL TIMES, he feels an extreme, anxious weight on his shoulders, which makes him incapable of indulging in "frivolous" behavior, like making smalltalk or doing things for fun. In fact, sarcasm and facetiousness are literally considered childish by Alternians, and Equius associates it with lower blood colors:

CT: D --> Humorous insincerity is for pedantic wigglers AG: Pshhhhhhhh, I know! I know you never make jokes. I was the one 8eing sarcastic, you stooge! AG: I was 8eing sarcastic a8out you 8eing sarcastic. Duh. CT: D --> That's because you're a little worse than me

That's why it's also kind of important to make him not really have hobbies. Eridan DOES have interests: he loves wizards and magic, and he's a hipster. HOWEVER, he only ever talks about magic in pursuit of some other goal, like finding a date or winning at a rivalry, AND he's constantly denying his own interest in these things, because they're frivolous, stupid, ridiculous, and deviations from what he "should" be like. He actively distances himself from things that make him happy. In fact, we only know he's a hipster because it's part of his design and Karkat mentions it once - Eridan himself has never talked about it. That's how far he's buried anything that actually brings him joy.

If your Eridan is smiling for ANY REASON, you are DOING IT WRONG!

While we're on the topic, things Eridan is NOT ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN:

History (he only ever talks about history in the vaguest possible terms; I think he is book smart and genuinely knows a lot ABOUT history, but his actual interest in it is middling. He's just expected to be really obsessed with history, especially military history, as a member of the aristocracy, and he reads it in the same way as one doomscrolls on twitter - it's a way for him to self-reinforce his own mental illness and soothe his cognitive dissonance)

Marine life/marine anything (he's TERRIFIED of the ocean, and has spent a few days underwater TOTAL. He knows nothing of the sea.)

Weaponry (he HAS a lot of guns, so he definitely knows how to use and maintain them, but there's a reason he outsources the building of all his doomsday devices. Also, he got a "god weapon" early on in his life, and has kind of just been... using that. He neither has a need to know much about weaponry, nor has ever displayed any particular interest or knowledge. He leaves fully loaded harpoons just lying around on the floor of his house. It's knowledge of necessity, not interest.)

Hunting/Violence/Murder (he's really good at it, he knows a lot about it, he will teach you on request, he will mention it constantly, but he doesn't actually derive any particular joy out of it, especially since we know his thought process after each kill is "that's going to make an orphaned troll very sad. they will be culled soon :/")

Fashion (he has more of an interest than the average Alternian, but it's still not a lot. He dresses up to emulate Dualscar, and his actual clothing choices beyond that are pretty disastrous. Canon Eridan has never shown an interest in fashion. Even if you do want to play him with an interest in fashion, which I think is fine, you have to remember that he deliberately distances himself from anything that brings him joy, so even if he likes fashion, he'll keep that a secret and insist he only does it for utility purposes.)

Pale Romance (just throwing this in there, it's the one quadrant he is *never* shown to pursue. He's tried Feferi and Nepeta in flushed, Sollux, Terezi, and Kanaya in ashen, and Rose and Vriska in pitch. if anything, he goes out of his way to AVOID pale romances, both because he just had a painful pale breakup, and because he freaks out at the implication that he's weak in any way, which pursuing a pale romance would all but be admitting)

The thing that makes playing Eridan so hard, I think, is that he's abjectly fucking miserable, BY CHOICE, and for most RPers, playing a character who's abjectly fucking miserable kind of goes against the appeal of RPing in the first place (that is, having fun). All of the things he says he's really into are things that he either has no interest in, or that actively make his life less enjoyable. All the things he spends all his time thinking about are things that make him feel anxious and hopeless. All the things he actually likes and would have fun with are the things he actively, deliberately, and loudly decries and suppresses.

So that's point 1: Eridan does NOT have fun.

ERIDAN IS AGGRO AS *FUCK*

The next most thing I see that trips people up is that they make Eridan too friendly, usually as an extension of accidentally giving him too much chill. There are two main factors here at play: the first is that he's desperately trying to be a violent, casteist, oppressive, dangerous sea dweller, and outright pushes that image, and the second is that he's really fucking anxious ALL THE TIME, and most peoples' sociability goes down when they feel the cold breath of the reaper on the backs of their necks 24/7.

When looking at the 4 responses to danger - fight, flight, freeze, and fawn - Eridan will overwhelmingly choose "fight," with "fawn" as his secondary option. This makes absolute sense in context: all his trauma comes from its inescapable nature - if he tries to run from his duties, everybody dies; if he freezes up and fails to complete them, everybody dies. Therefore, his only two options are to Fight, and to channel that violent response into completing his duties, and to Fawn, to capitulate to the things that are hurting him - much moreso the former than the latter. Unfortunately, that bleeds over into everything else. Great!

We can see this illustrated really well in his conversations with Kanaya: Eridan does not ask for favors or help, he makes demands:

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin ... CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to

ERIDAN: you should of told me about this ERIDAN: if theres goin to be any sort a hope for our race as the prince of hope i demand to be invvolvved ERIDAN: so dont go anywwhere wwithout me got it

The only time he ever really backs off is in confessions, where he's willing to be like "hey, I think we really got something here, don't you think so?", or when talking to Karkat (Karkat is really the only person that Eridan doesn't feel the need to put on airs around, and we can only speculate as to why. It's because they're destined moirails for each other.)

He will also do this for statements that he isn't 100% sure about. If he's going to say something, he is going to ASSERT IT as if it is IMMUTABLE FACT, even if he's immediately disproven. In which case he will admit fault, but then his NEXT wild assumption is the IMMUTABLE FACT.

CA: wwell fine you dont havve to behavve vvillainous if youre bent up on actin against the grain a your nobility or somesuch CA: i can play that role its not like i evver didnt get my gills dirty before TT: Nobility? What are you talking about? CA: wwell arent you TT: No. What gave you that idea? CA: the wway you CA: ok CA: i had a misconclusion about that so my fault CA: obvviously you got rich blood so maybe when you crash landed you wwerent recognized for it by wwhatevver vvehicle upholds the class structure in human society

I feel like he's the type who, if he's genuinely unsure about something, he just won't say it at all. Basically, Eridan is always operating at either 0% or 100%, with almost no in-between. NO CHILL. Given that he only strikes up conversations when he's trying to achieve something from it - whether that's actively getting someone to do something for him, or just trying to assert that magic is fake - he treats every conversation like it' i's a battle, where the prize is whatever it is he's attempting to do, and his conversation partner is an enemy that he has to beat into submission. (Karkat is the only exception. He actually just likes talking to Karkat, and will do more traditional "hey man you wanna talk about your feelings" kind of dialogue with him.)

If your Eridan has chill, you are doing it wrong!

ERIDAN STRUGGLES WITH EMPATHY

This really needs to be qualified: he does HAVE empathy. He DOES care about his friends. But his brain is really cooked, and he has an extremely difficult time actually working up the emotional energy to express or experience it.

He's kind of downright sociopathic, lol:

ERISOLSPRITE: iim of the miind2et that wwhen you havve a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 tiied twwo the dock, you dont bloody wwell tug the knot loo2e and 2hovve the fucker off wwiith the heel a your boot. ERISOLSPRITE: but then another part of me ju2t wwonder2 wwhat the FUCK ii ju2t 2aiid there? liike that wwa2 ju2t 2uch a wweiird 2ociiopathiic thought ii had, ii hone2tly had no iidea howw bad ii could po22iibly feel about my2elf untiil ii BECAME my2elf, iif THAT make2 2en2e.

Like, okay, how do I explain this. His body count is 2000+. He has an EXTREMELY difficult time caring about life or death. He's had to watch kids cry over their dead parents. He has had to kill kids trying to protect their parents, whom he has then had to kill. And he has done this over, and over, and over again, as long as he can remember, to the point where he calls it "all i evver done practically."

Just for the sake of preserving what's left of his sanity, he's had to learn how to not care about that. If he sees someone crying in front of him, it's unlikely to even emotionally register to him as anything beyond "factually, this person is sad." Shit happens, people die. Violence, tragedy, murder, injury, and death are literally daily occurrences to him. For you, the day I killed your lusus was the most important day of your now tragically short life. For me, it was Tuesday.

Vriska is in the same boat, BTW. I think a combination of just being a less sensitive person to start with, the existence of a support network (Equius and Kanaya and Terezi as friends + she was friends with Team Charge before the... incident), and the lack of all the Duty(tm) and Responsibility(tm), helped her cope a bit better, and be better about opening up to people and relying on them for emotional support.

What this means, in terms of playing/writing him, is that his priorities are extremely skewed, and he is genuinely not going to understand things like "maybe I shouldn't tell this land dweller I'm trying to kill all land dwellers," or "maybe this person is sad and I should comfort them," or "maybe my constant talk about murder and death is offputting to other people." Here he is, literally not understanding why insulting and belittling Kanaya has led to her not wanting to help him, as well as not understanding why Vriska might've blocked him:

CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs GA: If Your Slander Werent So Predictable Id Block You Too For Saying That GA: Has It Occurred To You She May Have Blocked You Because You Are Vvery Ovverbearing GA: I Just Said That Aloud Now In Your Silly Accent And Had A Private Moment Of Enjoyment CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her

His brain is constantly running at a fevered 100% full-tilt run; he doesn't have the space, leisure, or energy to spend considering things from the perspective of other people. It leads to weird paradoxes, where he IS considerate of other peoples' feelings, but doesn't actually consider their feelings. After spending almost the ENTIRE conversation with Kanaya belittling her and demanding she be his and Vriska's auspice, he abruptly switches gears:

CA: fine i get it ill step off CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that GA: No Thats Not It CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws it CA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright silly CA: but its cool its totally fine dont wworry ill leavve you alone and givve you a shot

Because he LIKES Kanaya, he REALLY CARES ABOUT Kanaya, he WANTS GOOD THINGS for Kanaya... and yet is entirely, wholly, not taking her feelings into account at all.

BUT! This also applies in reverse! You can make all the death threats and casteist insults and demands towards Eridan as you want, and he won't give a shit aside from his usual grandstanding protests. The only time we ever truly see him offended is when he's genuinely trying to do Jade a favor by giving her the code to his gun, and she calls it a piece of shit and tosses it out with the trash - and even then, he doesn't take THAT much offense. Judge for yourself:

GG: so ill just dump it outside the house with the trash GG: and if it is fated to find my penpal one day then so be it! CA: god damn it CA: its like you people go out of your wway to think a howw to disrespect me GG: maybe you should have been nicer to me! GG: in any case i dont appreciate the spirit in which the gift was given so this is what i will do! CA: fine fuck it wwhat do i care CA: this has been a completely flippin useless exchange as havve they all been wwith your species

After all, he's accustomed to much, much, much worse. His emotional response here is indignation, not even really HURT. Karkat also makes a bunch of genuine death threats towards Eridan, which get entirely written off as "wwitty repartee." He's just really bad at processing hostility! Hostility is very normal to him!

So basically, before letting Eridan engage in any act of empathy or compassion, you have to ask whether or not he's going to recognize that the situation would call for that in the first place, which he is REALLY BAD at identifying. He only asks Karkat if Karkat wants to talk about his feelings after Karkat explicitly says that he's freaking out in every possible way, and without that explicit indication, I don't think Eridan would've even noticed.

If your Eridan has social skills, you are Doing It Wrong!

This also means that, even if Eridan has realized that he needs to act compassionate, he's still going to be really fucking trash at actually providing emotional support. He can't even emotionally support himself, you think he can figure it out for other people?

The most he can do is call it like he sees it - "this is a stupid thing to get worked up over," for example. Or he can jump straight to solutions, like "so what, are you gonna kill that guy?" Being as charitable as humanly possible, he might be able to fire off a "that's rough, buddy" at ABSOLUTE maximum.

ERIDAN KIND OF JUST SEES SLURS AS FACTUAL DESCRIPTORS (AND OTHER GENERAL NOTES FOR HIS SYNTAX AND VOCAB)

And, let's face it, on Alternia, they kind of are. Kanaya doesn't even bother to call him out for calling Karkat an assblood, Terezi and Feferi and Sollux don't bother taking offense to calling Sollux a mustard blood, and Karkat calls himself a gutter blood at one point. Like, even if you're playing/writing an Eridan who's rejected Alternian society, he'll still probably be out here calling people slurs? Things that would be considered hostile from other characters are very much just neutral coming from Eridan. There is no emotional difference to him, calling someone a rustblood or a burgundy, but he's expected to say rustblood because of his sea dweller status, so that's what he goes with.

Also, make some grounded but wild assertions about people and things. This boy loves to Assume. Writing Eridan is a lot of going "ERIDAN DON'T SAY THAT!!!" it's great. Really painful. Highly unrecommended.

He's obviously quite book smart and uses a lot of big vocabulary words. You guys need to have Eridan go on these insane purple-prose rants more often. They're so fun to write and so cringe to post.

CA: yeah go ahead and kiss us off but therell be blood on your hands CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once

CA: but the thing is i need a rivval wwho can pose me a challenge CA: and frankly shes not evven fit for holdin my cape anymore CA: at this point i find all her adorable black pixie dabblins to be prime kiddie playtime shit CA: all of her FRAUDULENT MAGICS cannot come close to posin threat to my mastery ovver the TRUEST SCIENCES CA: an wwith my empiricists wwand i servve as the righteous hope that wwill incinerate delusion and the deluded alike CA: my holy fire is the wwhite fury bled from the wwrath-wweary eyes of fifty thousand nonfictional angels CA: and wwhen theyre finished wweepin they wwill boww before their prince GG: wow what are you talking about

For no reason at all. I'm going to post a little Karkat for comparison.

PCG: THE FUNNY THING IS IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL RECOGNIZE ME AS THE UNDISPUTED LEADER, EVEN YOU. PCG: YOU WILL BE STANDING ON THE TIPPYTOES OF YOUR IDIOTIC METAL SHOES, TAKING DELICATE PURCHASE OF MY NUBBY HORNS AND HOISTING YOURSELF OVER MY HEAD TO PUT YOUR SWEATIEST TOUGH GUY SMOOCH UPON MY TWITCHING SPINE LUMP. PCG: IT WILL BE TENDER AND DEFERENTIAL, LIKE A PAUPER KISSING A NOBLE'S RING. PCG: JUST SCROLL DOWN, READ THE LOGS.

Also, notes about his typing quirk:

First, the ww and vv stuff is actively a fake accent he puts on for the #Aesthetic, and his natural way of speaking doesn't include those at all, so it's entirely likely that if you're writing him after he's rejected Alternian society, or if he's trying to be really really emotionally sincere, he wouldn't be bothering with that part of the quirk specifically.

He doesn't ALWAYS drop the G at the end of words ending in -ing. It's frequent and common, but don't feel bad about letting a word end in a g, especially if it would sound or look better (for example, "being a kid and growwing up" doesn't bother to drop the g's at all).

Similarly, he doesn't ALWAYS change "of" to "a," especially preceding a vowel sound. You gotta be careful with when you change this up, because he pretty much only does it when it would make sense spoken aloud.

In phrases like "must have" or "could have," he will often (but not always) change "have" to "of" (so "must of" or "could of").

Dropping the D from the word "and" happens only one time in the entire comic, so it's probably a typo, and if it isn't, it's REALLY REALLY infrequent.

He will sometimes use shorthanded words, like "em" instead of "them" or "ya" instead of "you." I'd say it's occassional, a bit rarer than the G-dropping. He does tend to use "got to" instead of "gotta," however. Again, try saying his lines out loud, to figure out when best to use what.

Given his loquaciousness and clear command of the language, it's likely that this is for Style, but he also doesn't always bother with proper grammar. Places where "[person] and I" would be used are often switched out for "[person] and me," and he might forgo a contraction like "I've" or "we've" and just post the pronoun (for example, "you got to" instead of "you've got to."

He references ocean shit, and ocean anatomy, like his own fins and gills, pretty often! He just doesn't do the puns. Try using "flippin" instead of "fuckin" every now and then, or "glubbin" instead of "talkin," or nautical analogies.

Also throw in some British "bloody"s every so often.

Cusses like a sailor, though, has one of the highest "fuck" counts relative to wordcount out of all the characters (cough like Karkat cough).

HE DOES NOT USE PUNCTUATION. EVER. (Ok, he does use a period once while talking to Terezi in Alterniabound, but I think that that's a mistake because it's literally the only time). This is actually in STARK contrast to other characters that don't generally use punctuation, like Aradia or Nepeta, who will still use ellipses, exclamation points, and question marks. Eridan actively, consciously forgoes using ANY punctuation, EVER, even for questions (which you shouldn't be asking too many of, because Eridan makes DEMANDS).

ERIDAN DOES NOT ANGST

This is another thing that I see a lot. Yes, Eridan thinks that he's worse than everybody. Yes, he deliberately keeps fun things at bay and focuses on things that make him miserable. Yes, he's sad, anxious, emotionally neglected, etc. etc. But I often see this self-loathing played for dramatics - Eridan being withdrawn, quiet, moody, and sad. Or being consumed with guilt and regret, and wishing he didn't have to be a murderer or wasn't forced into the position he was. And that's just not the vibe.

Because Eridan has a lot of pride. He refuses to appear weak, and he has genuinely lost the emotional capacity to feel too guilty about all the killing. Moreover, here's something I often see get overlooked:

He would think of the murders he committed, and the fact that he's so good at murdering, as good things.

It's not only useful, but oftentimes NECESSARY, for somebody on the team to be willing to make those kinds of sacrifices, to be willing to pull the trigger. Very literally, murder kept him and his friends alive long enough to play the game.

There's no universe in which Eridan would denounce killing and violence, because to do so would be to say that he shouldn't have kept his friends alive. Even in a hypothetical golden ending, where everybody survives to the end, Eridan would be the guy on the team who posits murder as a potential solution to problems, reminds people that society is built on sacrifices and suffering, and offers to do the dirty work himself if nobody else has the stomach for it. As much as being the orphaner was DISASTROUS for his mental and emotional well-being, he wouldn't regret the things he did.

And this is reflected in the comic - the rare times he does break down and show that he kind of hates himself, the focus is never on guilt or regret, it's on his perceived shortcomings - calling himself an idiot or pathetic. Because that's what his real insecurity is - he doesn't hate himself because he sees himself as this awful piece of shit, the way Sollux does, he hates himself because he thinks of himself as not good enough, because if he's Not Good Enough, then Something Bad Will Happen.

Remember, his danger response is FIGHT. It's a different paradigm than what most of us are used to, which is why I see his inner turmoil so often represented by him being moody and broody, which he's never really done in the comic. Eridan doesn't get sad, even though he is sad; he gets mad, aggressive, combative. He doesn't wallow; he just keeps swimming.

CA: i got to keep tryin thats howw all the great military masterminds became great through upright persevverance

Again, his response to being insulted is indignation, not hurt. He doesn't sit in his room feeling sorry for himself, he obsesses over genocide and murdering all the land dwellers. His response to seeing the love of his life turn on him with killing intent is to flip out and start killing right back. After being broken up with, his response is to go and pester his friends (and yell at Gamzee a bit) until he can get some emotional support. He doesn't angst, he tries to solve the problem, and, if he can't solve the problem, he starts shooting.

He's awfully violent! If your Eridan is not awfully violent, you're probably doing it wrong!

BUT, ERIDAN LOVES HIS FRIENDS

At his core, however, as tangled up in all of the above as he may be, Eridan loves:

His friends

Wizards

Magic

Probably hipster shit

Happy endings

He is still, after all, a HOPE player. He struggles as hard as he does because he can't give up on the idea that things will get better, eventually. Even if he's struggling in the wrong direction, toward the wrong ideals, and even if emotionally, he's feeling more and more hopeless and closed in, he can't stop himself from trying, and trying, and trying again.

He loves magic. As much as he tries to push it away and calls it stupid and fake and lame at every turn, he still brought his shitty wands onto the meteor. Why does he love magic? It's an extension of his inability to give up. No matter how hopeless the situation, no matter how awful he feels, no matter how unrealistic salvation might seem, if only magic is real, then there's a solution. He wants to be a wizard so badly because wizards can do magic, and magic can overturn reality, and reality is this awful, inescapable nightmare. He is constantly being caught between nihilism and pessimism and hope and belief. In the comic, the nihilism won, but that's the great conflict at the core of his being.

So ummmmm yeah, I hope any of that helps with writing the fish boy at all. Basically, if you aren't constantly cringing while writing the bullshit that comes out of his mouth, you're probably doing it wrong...

[orangeypopsicle]

Writing this because I'm scanning through fics right now like a sad cat in a wet cardboard box. Like, I'm so desperate for a story that shows the complexity of Velvet and Veneer's relationship, but also, I've been in such a depressive funk the past few weeks that I can't write it. I feel like I can dedicate another post to them here, though.

Velvet wasn't an angel, nor was Veneer heartless, but there is something to note how they both had a mix of qualities. This may be a controversial statement, but Veneer seems to have this issue where he leans on his more domineering sister due to low self-esteem, which results in him enabling Velvet. He loved his sister and was partially convinced to go through with harmful actions, but to what extent does loving someone also explain hyping up that person while they hurt people? Also, I don't particularly enjoy the difference in how he phrased the reasoning for his actions to Floyd versus the public. Veneer mentions the attachment to his sister when talking to Floyd, but his own personal gains in the situation are emphasized. When Veneer apologizes to the public for being a fraud, he mentions his want for fame but also retracts this statement by saying that only Velvet wanted fame, and he followed her due to not standing up for himself. It was an admission of guilt, but the shift to his sister being malicious instead of them both wasn't fully taking accountability either. It's a point of emphasis for me due to the softening of Veneer's personality by the fandom. He's a person with a reserved personality and more likely to feel remorse, but also is materialistic and a bit two-faced.

Since I don't want this to be a rant about Veneer because I very much love both characters, I want to get to Velvet. She's a person with a history of emotional regulation issues: explosive, self-serving, and self-centered. Velvet is a person who is desperate for attention and approval by any means necessary. She puts on a show (with talent she stole), gives it her all, gets very close to seriously injuring herself multiple times in the process, and offers to entertain them more when the audience cheers her on. Similar to her brother, I like to think that she's a person with horrendously low self-esteem but tends to deal with it by putting people down so that she can feel better. However, I want to give the benefit of the doubt that she may not be aware of the extent to which she uses people. When Veneer directly states his issues with their relationship in his confession of their crimes, Velvet responds by saying that she thought that he was on the same page with her ideas. Velvet implies multiple times in the story that she believes that they both wanted fame. Did that make Velvet's lack of concern over Veneer voicing his worries okay? No! I want to bring some attention to Velvet not seeming to fully understand how people feel when they are hurt or when they may have different needs. (Writer's note: Mind you, I have a disability and other mental illnesses that impair my ability to understand other people, so I'm more willing to humanize traits like that.) I also want to mention that Veneer did reap the benefits of exploiting the trolls and said that he enjoyed his luxurious lifestyle more than his remorse about hurting people. So it also may be a mix of Velvet struggling to understand people on an emotional level and a genuine misunderstanding.

Despite the two being a bundle of issues, it's very sweet how well they mesh and how they like to be in-sync. Veneer catches Velvet before she falls, Velvet pats Veneer on the head when he's nervous, Veneer instinctively goes behind Velvet to feel safe, they go shopping together and wear matching clothes, and they naturally lean into and are generally physically close to each other. They both aren't great as people, but care for each other.

On a semi-related topic and not wanting to make another post dedicated to it, I wish the movie expanded on the drug metaphor? It's a children's film, but I do feel that talking to young children at home who may be experiencing family members struggling with addiction has a place in media. It makes you do things you wouldn't normally do, it can make you hurt people in a variety of ways, it's an unfortunate lifestyle choice in a number of young people who were chewed up and spat out by the entertainment industry, it frequently starts with the idea that it's casual use/emotionally or psychologically beneficial and quickly snowballs horribly, and it alienates you from your loved ones. This could have been a unique opportunity to not only be about how drug use is harmful but also what it's like to be unequipped to help a person who doesn't want help. We tell children that drugs are bad but also don't prepare them for when the person doesn't want to stop despite all evidence showing that it's harmful. It can be very confusing because it's not emphasized how hard of a process it is to get sober or even want to get sober.

But yeah, those were some of my thoughts! Thanks for reading, if you got this far. 😅

[barachiki]

I had a panic attack today about a burrito.

It started yesterday when my wife suggested we grab some on the way home. We went to a new place so we didn’t have to cross the highway. I order, then my wife orders half the toppings on hers before checking for cilantro, which she has an allergy. (We usually go to a cilantro free place so it was just a mistake). And of course there is some in the rice, and she panicked because the staff member looks like he was about to panic as well, so I say how about I just have that one for lunch tomorrow and she can start over.

Fine. Good. Three burritos are purchased, one goes in the fridge. Only I was in meetings all day and didn’t get a lunch, so I mention casually that I have to have this extra burrito for dinner tonight because it won’t be good for lunch after another day.

Then it started. This wave of pressure, guilt and fear washes over me. I felt like I was going to die. This feeling of impending doom because I had my dinner planned and my wife would have to fend for herself.

Now, rational me knows that my wife is a grown-ass woman who can cook her own fucking dinner. But panic attack me thought of this as a wholly selfish thing to do. So I get up and go to make her something. Not for her sake at this point, but to make the anxiety I’m feeling go away. I get a few ingredients together, but the pan I wanted to use was in the dishwasher. I begin to cry at this point. I lay on the sofa shaking.

This is when my wife comes in from outside, unaware of the situation. I’m in tears, the kitchen is a disaster and I am babbling through the snot and crying about a stupid burrito.

She calmed me down a bit by talking to me, brings me my anxiety meds and we sit together til I am a bit more relaxed. I take some breaths and am eventually a bit better. She makes herself some food and I get the burrito. It wasn’t very good, and honestly, I had to throw half of it away because it wasn’t sitting well in me.

The thing here is, any of a number of things could have caused that panic attack. I got two and a half hours sleep last night. I am on some new meds that are affecting my hormones. I didn’t eat all day. I’m still recovering from being extremely ill. All of the above. But that just made everything feel so much worse because I felt so broken.

It was never about the burrito.

Writing this out now gives me an interesting perspective at it. Since now I am calm, I have my pyjamas on, I am in bed early, and I will put on a show or something to relax. But remembering those few minutes when I was feeling genuinely irrationally obsessed with a burrito is a reminder that I am struggling, and sometimes these struggles can come to a head and make me do (dare I say) crazy things.

I am bipolar, I have generalized anxiety disorder. And I have been medicated for my entire adult life. My doctor is new to managing my mental health meds because of some crap I don’t want to talk about. He wants me to take away some of the meds I am on, but increase the dose on the ones that work. I have been bumping into side effects and walls where I can’t even take cough syrup let alone prescribed meds without jumping head first with a drug interaction. So let’s clean up my meds.

It is hard to do. And my unbalanced self is poking through at my weak moments. I had a bunch of weak moments today and it culminated in this bit of mania and chunk of anxiety that makes me feel insane.

But here I am, an hour later, in my pyjamas and typing this into tumblr, seeing clearly that the burrito doesn’t matter.

I wish I could see this clearly all the time.

I think I will make an appointment with my shrink soon.

[brandnewhuman]

Hi dad. I got an angsty one for ya.

How would the slashers (anyone you wanna write for, as many or few as you want) react to a reader who they've kinda fallen for and acts comfortable around them, but is really just putting up an act to stay alive? maybe the reader could fall for them, but they're scared out of their mind and Stockholm syndrome isn't happening. 😈😈😈

Trigger of love

Headcanons

☆STARRING☆

☆Brahms Heelshire☆

☆Michael Audrey Myers☆

☆ Jason Voorhees ☆

☆ Jesse Cromeans ☆

Tw: major character death, description of injuries and bones breaking, canon violence, mature language, toxic relationships, mentions of blood, description of mental illness

A/n: THIS IS THE JUICIEST TASTIEST ANGST REQUEST EVER BRO. so happy to finally have the opportunity to write it, even tho it has taken me ages but I'VE DONE FINALLY. That's my shit right here, really tragic stories with really tragic endings and never ending dramas ANYWAY ENJOY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BRAHMS HEELSHIRE:

I genuinely think brahms would end up killing you

LET ME EXPLAIN OKAY? DON'T COME AT ME

he wouldn't do it on purpose, it would be something accidental. Your behaviour would bring out the worst tantrum ever in history 

Not your fault bro I know but it is what it is

The fact is that everytime brahms does something bad it has some sort "justification"

Like Idk if it makes sense but take greta for example

He did all those things at the beginning cause she was breaking the rules, and he killed Cole cause he was hurting her 

You're not doing anything wrong but at the same time he's hypersensitive to people's behaviour so he knows you're not really doing it because you love him but more because you fear him

It's like living with his parents and even tho there's some sort of comfort in it because it's all he knows, he still wants to feel truly loved 

You don't try to escape but don't let the Stockholm syndrome kick in either and you don't even give a chance to actually believe he's not going to hurt you

Which again, not your fault cause his tantrums are enough on their own to make someone shit themselves, and he knows it 

We love a self-aware king

So he finds himself in this shitty in between where he can't say he doesn't has what he wants but neither that he's happy

For once in his life, having his own selfish need of you staying ecc it's not enough and he wishes for you to be happy as well

You do everything and beyond to keep him happy 

Never once broke a rule, never once tried to get away, never said no to giving him affection or anything he asks for

You have even taken care of him when he was sad ecc

But he can still see it in your eyes how scare you are of him

You flinch away everytime he just as much as lifts his hand, you always tremble slightly around him, your eyes has never stopped being glossy 

The only time he sees any other emotion in you besides fear is when you're alone and he's not really sure how much better that is cause you look so defeated and sad and overall depressed 

Needless to say the guilt is eating him alive, to know he's the one who has ruined you like that will never leave him a moment of peace 

It's literally driving him crazy

At first he was like 'yeah whatever, fuck you. You'll stay anyway and I'm not going to say sorry' 

Oh boy if he did regretted it

Once again, he feels like he felt while living with his parents all over again and after a while he develops this fear of you killing yourself like they did

My man here is collecting trauma like pokemon cards 

He tries everything like everything for real

He becomes more patient, he tries to take care of you instead of making you take care of him, he treats you like you could break if he's not careful enough

At this point my boy doesn't even fuckin wants you to be in love or for you to get the Stockholm syndrome, he just wants to show you he's sorry and that he has learned his lesson 

It's like living in some sort of loop from hell where he can't fucking make it right even if he really wants to

He has even stopped spying you and invading your privacy without you having to ask for it

Has even considered to let you go but he has found out about this underlying fear of someone telling the police everything and making him end up in a much worse situation than being a prisoner in his own house 

Funnily enough his insecurities about his face ecc are subsided by how much of a monster he feels on the inside

Like you have made very clear you're simply scared of him as a person, not because of his face.

And that's something he will never be able to get over 

After countless months of trying and being in his best behaviour he just kind of snaps 

You haven't seen him all day and you didn't felt observed either which made a very appreciated break from your hypervigilanting and stressing routine 

Just when you thought everything was calm and you decided to head up to go to bed, there he was waiting for you at the top of the stairs 

He seemed calm but you could seem the slight trembling of his body, one you recognise from numerous fits of rage he had in the past

He didn't straight up started to yell but you sensed there were like wrong and right answers to each question he was making 

He kept asking you if you loved him truly, if you were happy or if you wanted to leave 

To everything you always answered what he wanted to hear even tho the feeling that you were saying the wrong thing was only growing more and more

'You're scared of me, aren't you? You'll never want to be here'

At this point he knows you're lying and for a second something seems to switch in you

He has stopped wearing the mask around you so now you can freely see how pained he actually looks

You have never noticed before how tired he looks too

You have spent so much time being scared of him that now that you see it and you like really look at him you can see how defeated and miserable he has been

There's no trace of pretending or lying or trying to manipulate you in any way 

Now you're still scared but not as much and for once you actually decide on your own to try and help him 

You can't stand to look at him crying like that, it looks like he's going to die from a heartbreak anytime soon 

You start to go towards him with your hands up forwards so he knows you mean no harm

It's really like trying to get a stray animal to trust you

He has his hands covering his face and you can see how violent are the sobs, you actually take a minute to let yourself be amazed by the fact that even with such a hard and brutal crying he's able to conceal the noise 

He's used to do it since he was a kid and it shouldn't surprise you that much but in some way it does 

When you finally reach for him that's when he pushes you away screaming

Which scares the shit out of you and makes you lose your balance

It's a cliché but he swears it all happened so fast but at the same time so slow

He saw how you made yourself trip backwards and your face contorted in panic as you felt the void behind you, realising you were about to fall down the stairs

He tried to grab you but you were trying to hold on the rail so you just completely missed his hand 

You basically flew down the really long staircase and all he could do was watch 

He had that paralysing feeling of guilt and fear clawing at his guts as he watched you fall 

But when he heard the disgusting sound of your neck basically snapping against the hardwood floor, that's when he really felt sick 

He almost wanted to run away and pretend nothing has happened cause in his mind, if he got near you now that would make you dead for real

For now as he watches from afar you could still be alive 

BTW baby bro here is not stupid and I'm not talking basic level of knowledge nono

I'm talking he has studied and read about a lot of stuff including books about medical things like injuries ecc 

Basically he's like really smart 

That being said, and I know you know where I'm going with this 

From the moment you fell he knew you wouldn't survive.

Either that or you would end up disabled 

He knows too that when you snap your neck you don't die on the spot but you feel a ridiculous amount of pain until the injure does its course of action

That's yet another thing he feels guilty about your death

He should've put you out of your pain at least but he didn't, he just stared at you while shaking and crying silently 

He didn't even dared to move in case some invisibile and unnoticed force of the universe would notice what he has done and decided to punish him for it

Which thinking about he felt like he was already being punished 

It's kind of sad cause he didn't actually meant it, it was truly an accident but he will always blame himself for it as if he was the one actively pushing you 

Now he knows that no matter what he does or how much he changes he's always destined to be the cause of the death of the people he loves. 

Which he should've seen coming since not even his parents could bear his existence 

MICHAEL MYERS:

Tbh he's not that shocked about it

I mean bro at least acknowledges the fact that he is the fucking boogeyman and everyone will always find him scary

He doesn't even tries to excuse himself because he knows he kills and he's a overall unhinged man and that's something a normal person will never get over 

What bothers him is the acting nice 

When you both met, you really didn't knew who he was

He happened to have been badly injured and was like bleeding the fuck out on your backyard 

yes, you basically just took him inside as if he was some sort of stinky and pitiful ugly cat

That and the fact that you're taking care of him stirred him away from the idea of killing you

No shame in being oblivious to the most juicy gossip in town but bro was really just waiting for you to recognise him

When you did, and you started to act all nice and scared ecc he has to admit he took advantage of it

He knew how to scare you into never running away and never snitching him to the police so he could use you for food ecc

At some point he was impressed by how well you're able to keep up with this 

No lashing out, no crying and you have never broke down 

He could tell tho that you have never been this stressed 

Your hands are always trembling, you don't sleep well at night so you're getting clumsier by the minute 

When you drop stuff, burn food ecc he doesn't mind much but as time goes by it's hard for him to not get attached to you

Which it frustrates him cause he it makes him even more aware of how you see him

He has come to know you by invading your privacy a little bit

He had to since you were not exactly open to let him get to know you

The more he finds the more he likes you

And the more he likes the more he realise he has basically killed you from the inside 

It's hard to think all of those things he has found out are about you cause now you look more like a shell of what you used to be

And he definitely feels the guilt of being responsible of you losing your spirit

You're the first person he really cares about and loves like really truly loves

But that goes against everything he is now cause he can't possibly choose between be with you or killing

He starts to dwell on the past too much and the more he thinks about it the more he gets mad about the situation 

Before you he has never really care too much about the injustices he has suffered 

As a matter of fact he has never really grasped the fact that so many people have failed him and that's why he will never have a normal life

There was a time where he kind of did but that was long ago when he was just a kid 

At some point he just accepted what everyone said he was, that he's only purpose and role in life was to be a monster to everyone

Whether he wanted to or not it wasn't really important 

No one would help him nor he could make people change their minds

Besides, his reasoning is that if so many people is saying it then it must be true

And in his own selfish way he thought that the only one who got the consequences of it was him and the idiots who happened to be killed by him

Now that he sees the result of what everyone and himself has done with him on you he just feels sick

He finds himself spending hours observing you and daydreaming about how a normal version of him would've lived a normal life with you

He tries really hard to show you he can be gentle 

Spends hours observing other couples and what normal people do with their loved ones to understand better how he should act in order to get closer to you

It's so frustrating for him cause he literally doesn't has a choice anymore and he sees in you everything that's wrong with him that he can't change

He feels for the first time as broken as he really is 

At some point he wishes you could just drop the act of being nice, treat him like trash so he can tell to himself you're like everyone else therefore he doesn't need you 

But even if you were to do that he knows he would never be able to kill you

Everytime you touch him even if it's by mistake he gets a bubbly feeling of hope inside that maybe you're starting to see him as something different than what he is 

But then he looks at your eyes and he sees the same glossy and sad scared stare looking right back at him

He knows there's like nothing else he can do and for the first time he just gives up 

He needs to like get used to not be able to see you so he starts with small steps

He starts to staying out for a couple of hours more than usual, then hours turn to days, days into weeks, weeks into months and months into a year 

Everytime he comes back and you see him he can immediately see the shift in your behaviour and how you lose all the already weak sparkle you have gathered from knowing he was far away from you

That's the worst part of it for him

He needs to see you, he wants to spend time with you and looks forward to see you for the last few times before going away fr 

But you on the other part seem to flourish when he's not around, to count the minutes and seconds until he's gone 

It kinda makes him feel like he felt when he was a kid and he wanted to see his parents 

The day he finally came back for the last time after a year you were asleep

He didn't even sit on the bed, nor did he woke you up or did anything that could steer you away from your sleep

He sat on the floor near your bed in complete silence 

He took off his mask knowing that you would never see him and he just stared at you

He wanted to look at you, take in every detail of your face to burn it in his brain so he would never forget you 

He just wanted to look at you not as the shape, but just as Michael. Even if just for one time he wanted to pretend he was just that and that you were being stared by a person and not a monster 

For once his difficulty in expressing his emotions was useful because if he were to let go of all the things he was experiencing he could swear he would just explode or melt away 

The only thing that came out of him was a tear, which he swiped away slowly before getting up and putting on the mask again

After that he never came back, obviously you were over the moon and he was just well going on with it 

He occasionally stalks you but after some time he stops cause it makes him feels sickeningly alone 

Here something to think about if you need to cry: sometimes he thinks back at when he was trying to get closer to you 

One of the things he wanted to do the most was holding hands but you always looked so scared when he tried to do that he just dropped it 

He understands how it might look to you that this tall ass bastard is trying to hold your hand 

That and the fact that he wasn't really good at being careful and gentle didn't help his cause 

So from time to time, when he thinks about it he stares at his hands 

You know when you like pretend to be holding someone's hand while holding yours? 

Well he does that and finds ironic the fact that he has learned to do it gently now that he will never be able to do it with you

JASON VOORHEES:

Listen, LISTEN

I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK, IM A JASON APOLOGIST FIRST AND A HUMAN SECOND

jason my beloved what are this foul gremlins making me do smh

He is one of the few slashers I genuinely think could change for you and try to make things better

Jason doesn't kills just for funsies 

He kills because his sense of duty and to protect himself and his home and all that jazz

I don't really think he genuinely wants anyone fearing him

If anything it's the opposite. He has been treated like a monster his whole life, no one has ever gave him the opportunity to be something else

Like why would he enjoy ending up being what everyone has always thought of him? Doesn't make any fucking sense mate

Like I said he has to, he genuinely thinks there's nothing else for him to do and there's no other place in the whole world for him

IM GONNA CRY BUT LIKE HE'S AT LEAST GRATEFUL OF HAVING A PURPOSE CAUSE HE GENUINELY THINKS HE'S SOME SORT OF SICK JOKE OR MISTAKE 

 So my Wild take of the day for which I'm ready to bet my own ass is that if he could he would very much appreciate to just be left alone and live a normal life, not bothering or harming anyone

The fact is that much more like so many other slashers he can't really communicate to tell you at least his reasons for being a murderer 

That's something that torments him daily, to know that in your eyes he's merciless and overall really evil

Assuming you survive being hunted down by him, he would do near to everything to show he's not a threat for you

You must have been someone who he didn't deem fair to kill 

Like you were respectful, you didn't seem to be a fucking moron messing around and ruining his home 

Once again, I'm gonna assume you just don't know about him and crystal lake ecc

cause otherwise for you to be there is pretty much a death wish from your part

That being said, if you don't know anything about him there's a good chance that the scariest part of Jason (sadly) it's his appearance and behaviour 

JASON BABE YOU'RE HUGE LIKE SCARY BIG, WHAT THE MCFUCK IS ONE SUPPOSED TO FEEL SEEING YOU CHARGING AT THEM LIKE A FUCKING GRIZZLY BEAR 

The whole being chased around like a fucking animal is not a vibe i guess 

LET ME BE DELUSIONAL ABOUT THE FACT THAT WITH ENOUGH TIME HE COULD BE QUITE NICE TO BE AROUND 

I won't let anyone ruin my mental image of him being a sweetheart once you know him

THAT MAN CAN'T BE THAT EVIL. YES, I CAN FIX HIM. IF YOU THINK YOU CAN'T THAT SOUNDS LIKE A YOU PROBLEM

Now, jason may be shy and a gentle giant but he's not stupid

He knows very well how you think of him and how does he looks like to anyone who sees him

He can see through your act, you can't fool him

He can see the same scared look in your eyes he used to see on other people's face when he was a kid

The only person who has always looked at him like he's just well a human being with feelings is his mother

And maybe it doesn't makes sense and It may be controversial but deep down jason appreciates the nice act 

Like he just can't bring himself to care anymore. At least someone is trying to be nice 

Keep in mind this man has known nothing from the world beside humiliation, pain and loneliness 

Idk if anyone ever thinks about it but it torments me a great deal the thought of Jason's miserable life

Being stripped away from your humanity, having to choose a path of violence to protect yourself, having to witness how they kill the only person in the whole universe that could ever love you 

That shit it's just not fair and even if he knows you're scared of him he sees it as the most caring and thoughtful anyone has ever been with him in a long time

Think about it, anyone who has ever seen him has either tried to kill him or has been incredibly cruel 

The fact that, even if out of fear and self-preservation, you try to still reach to his human side and treat him with respect at least it's already enough

I think he could be one of those slasher that could make you fall in love without falling for the Stockholm syndrome type of infatuation 

HE IS, OKAY? I WILL TAKE NO FUCKING CRITICISMS. YOU WILL GENUINELY FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM OR ELSE I'LL STEAL YOUR FUCKING PET

Jason would literally try everything to get you to feel less stressed around him

It breaks his heart to see your eyes glossy or your body shaking because of fear 

In the process he gets clumsier by the minute so at the in of the day you're both stressed 

He is because he's scaring you just by breathing and you bc obvious reasons

You can notice how different he acts tho and somehow, his efforts manage to go through your thick layer of fear 

You could swear he almost tries to make himself look as harmless and gentle as possible

You can see him trying to take as little space as he can or bringing you things that might cheer you up 

He cleans up from blood and gore before getting back home 

He even makes his cabin more homely for you so you feel more at home and less kidnapped 

And at some point it works 

That plus you somehow piecing together what has happened to him it's starting to make it easier for you to not relax but overall feel less terrified around him

He would spend so much time watching you from afar because he knows he will never get to know you or see you without fear 

The days where he can observe you without you noticing anything are his favourite. He gets to see a version of you more relaxed and natural

He would literally spend an eternity being far from you if it means you can feel better 

He would spend his free time improving the cabin and daydreaming about what it would be like to be liked by you

Not even like dating you because he feels it would be wrong for him to even think about it

Please for the love of God, try to be friendly with him

Having the opportunity to know him better is taking away some of the fear

You know very well it's not Stockholm syndrome cause it feels genuine

One day you take a good look at him while he's taking care of his flowers I'm the garden 

You observe every part of his rotting being and you can't exactly explain why but you feel your heart ache and your eyes glossy 

Not for you, but for him

It's almost like some sort of illumination comes to you and makes everything painfully clear

You have obviously noticed he's not alive cause we're stupid but not that much 

You take a really good look at his clothes and body, at his mask and everything you look at to get more details about him

Everything in his appearance screams hurt, wounded and mistreated. A whole life and a afterlife filled with getting hurt and abused by the world 

His bright blue eye has always a layer of sadness in it even when he's doing something that makes him happy

It hits you just now how little human he must feel. 

And that leads you to realise that he has not only changed so much just to please you but has distanced himself as if he's very own existence could be offensive to you

From that day you started with small steps like saying good morning or good night to him, keeping him company when he tended to his garden, trying to get closer to him even if that means just being in silence and standing next to him

That grows into "talking" with him, taking walks around the woods, spending evenings reading inside the cabin 

You insist in eating together, tending his wounds, mending his clothes and overall doing anything that could make him feel less like the shell of a human being 

At first he doesn't really get it but the more you do it the more he silently realises how much he craves those types of things. 

I personally think that with enough patience you both could build a good relationship and you could even talk him out of killing people and settle for just scaring them away

He's favourite thing to do is curling up next to you in bed, his head on your chest so he can listen to your heartbeats while you mindlessly caress his back while telling him about anything you want 

JESSE CROMEANS:

🎶DADDY LET ME KNOW THAT I'M YOUR ONLY GORL🎶

Some funzies before doing some emotional terrorism

Since you all want to be a menace with this requests I'm going to use post accident Jesse

To say this man is on the verge of tears every single day is an understatement

So long story short you were jesse s/o

He was like the love of your fucking life and you were his

His whole world goes around you, you're the only thing that makes him genuinely happy besides his work

You found out about the whole chromeskull thing in the worst way possible

He was scared of coming back after the accident with his face so he just kind of distanced himself

Everytime you would ask when he was coming home he always had an excuse

You both went a long time of just calling each other's, spending time on calls and sometimes even falling asleep with the phone still on

He missed you so much but he couldn't bear the thought of you looking at him like he was monster

It was killing him to know he was so close to you but couldn't reach you

You find out who he really was on accident

Cleaning around to distract yourself you ended up gathering many things that needed to be put in the attic so that you did

Once you were there you found some tapes. You checked them out of curiosity and oh boy you regretted it

You felt so sick you almost threw up

All those girls, there were some many of them in each tape and each one of them different from the other

It was horrifying to watch the love of your life mercilessly torture and kill helpless and innocent people

Now everything made so much more sense and It actually made you feel even worse to know that this whole time, while you were talking with him, Jesse was killing people

What hurts the most is feeling like you've been played, like you were something he has used to entertain himself until he finds a new victim

Needless to say you didn't stayed in your shared apartment a day longer, you didn't even take with half of the things you own

Most of them were gifts Jesse bought you so bringing them with you was only going to make it worse

You were scared out of your mind. So scared that in fact you couldn't even find the courage to go to the police, afraid that maybe that would end up with your being another one of Jesse victims

Obviously no one told Jesse what was going on. They all collectively agreed their boss was dealing with enough shit to keep adding more

They all needed Jesse to focus on work

That didn't worked well cause as soon as you stopped answering the phone he decided enough was enough

He needed to check what was going on so he found the courage to overcome his insecurities and go find you

He was heartbroken when he found you left

He immediately thought that you just got tired of waiting for him, that he has drawn you away

Long story short he went after you to find you and try at the best of his abilities to explain everything and win you back

He did not see the coming all that panic and terror in your face when he knocked at your door

He did think it was bc of his face so he tried to calm you down and explain

Needless to say you didn't calm down and he being the man he is, just kind of kidnapped you

Now onto business here

He knows you have every right to feel like this but it still upsets him deeply to know that he will never get the chance of being with you like before

He thought that you being scared and acting crazy every time you saw him was the worst but now he is kind of rethinking it

You started acting like this after he "snapped" at you

You were panicking and screaming while he tried to tell you something, that lead to you taking his mask off accidently which ended up in him pushing you off too hard

After that things went really fucking downhills

It wasn't like you were still out of your mind but the look in your eyes is unbearable

The first time you started the whole acting nice thing he almost thought you were starting to at least tolerate him but then he saw it

It's the same look some of his victims had while trying to gain his trust, seeing it on you was the worst thing he has ever experienced

He just couldn't stand it anymore, his face, you hating him, his favourite victim who was the one that has damaged him so badly killed by that cunt of Preston and now this? Mate is done

He has tried everything and anything but now he just kind of gives up

You notice the shift in his behaviour, how he comes by just to bring your meals or things you may need, he doesn't even goes near you or talks and his eyes are always anywhere but on you

I gotta be real with you guys, I don't think there's like a way to make this up

HE'S HURT OKAY? BRO'S EMOTIONAL DAMAGE IS BIG AF

He would even start sending his assistant to take care of you so he doesn't has to face you at all

It's just painful cause he already feels like his life is ruined and everything is falling apart with him not being able to fix it

You know what? I'm gonna fix it cause I can't take it anymore

You have probably grown used to be basically trapped at home, it's not like you're suffering with god knows what kind of abuse cause you basically have all you need to distract yourself aside from going out

Jesse comes home very rarely and as much as you hate to admit it you have been feeling less and less scared of him

You still think what he does is horrible but the thing that bothers you it's him lying to you

You do have to admit you miss being with him. Not like when you were scared but like when you didn't knew and he was just Jesse

You wonder from time to time if he's angry at you for how you have reacted since he hasn't shown himself for quite sometimes

As if on clue you hear something break in the bathroom and what seems like someone crying

That would be another of Jesse's mental breakdowns about his face. He thinks he looks so bad he can't even bear the sight of himself in the mirror

You slowly try to approach the bathroom and putting your ear against the door, you try to hear what's going on

You have never heard Jesse crying nor making any sort of noises come out of his mouth so it's actually quite shocking to hear him sob so hard

When you open the door the scene breaks your heart and in that moment you don't see chromeskull or the homicides, you just see your Jesse, the same one you have always loved and that has always helped you when you were down, on his knees bawling his eyes out and shaking

You just do what comes naturally aka you get closer and you just hold him as tight as possible

He tries to hide away, panicking bc he doesn't want you to see what he has become, but you just keep hugging him and saying that it doesn't matter

The moment you hold his face on your hands and look at him with the same understanding gaze you used to have it's the moment he feels his heart beating right again

It's not gonna be easy to accept everything but at least you're coming around it and he makes sure you know how grateful he is for it everyday

[eastereggie]

woohoo !! didnt except to respond to this whole essay (for more context, im talking about the document jay made about the drama in the kaeloo fandom lol) considering the fact that its basically just 222 pages of insults towards random (and especially her mental state -who tf do you think you are btw) and then pretending to be a saint by randomly saying "b-but ! i dont h-hate you guys 🥺". i knew that this whole "call-out post" would be bullshit, but thats just low. really, really low. i figured that you and your little friends (or should i refer to yall as a cult too ? since we're going in the extremes :)) were mostly just here to insult people and play the victims, but i didnt think it would be that bad. i wont say much about whats in the document because i think its randoms place to do so, since its basically just a long ass diss to her, but i still wanted to write a short response. am i allowed to though ? i mean, as a teen (even if im 18 in a few months, ive been called underage in your document so ill go with that) i can draw and read explicit content to explore my sexuality 🥺🥺 but i cant think for myself right ? :/ thats too bad. i cant agree with my friends because that would also mean that im a yes-man and that im being manipulated or wtv helps you sleep at night lol

this is just to respond to the little part that has been directly adressed to me: if my answers are short when the drama is brought up its because...i actually dont give that much of a fuck about the drama itself. do i think that you guys are gross for writing and drawing porn of children and animals ? yes, i do. would i care if you just stayed in your own server to share that shit to your "safe place" ? absolutely not. you do you. that is none of my problems if you dont bring it up in a space you share with KIDS. thats the whole problem with you. you posted your disgusting content in websites where kids will obviously find. as an adult, you must be really naive to think that they will just read your warning and think: oh yeah !! ill just move on to a new fic :3 !!

they are kids. this is a kid show. obviously, you are sharing your fandom with kids, and you have to be careful about that. that is your responsibility, whether you like it or not. you cannot except to be appreciated and respected when you write porn about kids, in a fandom full of kids. if you genuinely, truly believe that everyone should accept you for that...then man, theres nothing i can do for you. but you know, you could share your things since you cherish them so much in patreon or in your discord server if its too explicit, but ao3 ? wattpad ? the stm ? those are FILLED with young teens. i can't believe you're whining about having to respect rules to coexist in a fandom of a show about kids with kids...wild

again, this is my OPINION. i cannot force you to not like...well, the things that you like... but i can definitely call you out if you're sharing that to kids, even if its indirectly and that you put warnings or whatever. you need to be cautious about the members of the fandom. if you're unhappy about this, then leave the space that isnt for you.

as i said, this happens in many fandoms filled with minors: bunch of adults are weird. they're being called out for being weird. they cry about it and create a group. they call people who call them weird, weird. its really common. thats why the center of the drama isnt new or interesting to me. thats why i dont write essays whenever it is brought up in the main server, or when nsfw fics were posted there. creeps exist in EVERY FANDOMS. do i still think its good to call them out ? totally. but that explain why i:

1. didn't really say anything when jay were posting their fics. since they agreed with us on the topic of kaeloo fics with nsfw but still were posting them, i figured out that there was not point in arguing. i just ignored the weird parts of the stories or simply didnt read anything. i dont like conflicts, and had a lot going on (still do), so i didnt speak about it before. thats my bad though: even if jay wouldnt have cared because they have a different opinion than me about aging up characters apparently, i shouldve said something whenever i had the chance and not only when the subject of fics with porn was brought up, and i take full responsibility. but you must know that i do not support those type of works and never have said that i do. whenever we spoke about it, i made it very clear that it was gross and that i dont agree with it at all. to tlak about jay's fics again, i mostly was enthusiastic about all the parts where sex wasnt involved (about the ss of me talking about jays fic about pregnancy, i loved seeing how mr cat and kae would act as soon-to-be parents ! i think its cute !! do not mean that i agree with writing full scenes about how that child is made).

jay has great ideas, thats why i liked their work so much. i will never pretend that i hate EVERYTHING that they do. theyve wrote and drew great stuff, and just because i dont agree with them as a person doesnt mean that ill ignore that or the compliments that ive given to them. i admire a lot of their work and didnt lie about any nice things ive said to them. this is not all white or all black.

2. didnt write really big responses in the STM. this is a server about kaeloo. the drama isnt really brought up there, except when its important or at the start of it. with college, job, family issues and the start of adulthood soon, i do not have time to be on discord in the first place. either im here for a brief moment, or i can be active when everyone is asleep so they already said everything i had in mind and all i can say is "yes" to messages i agree with and "no" to messages i dont. you do not know me, and if you genuinely believe that this is all i think about what is happening, then you're just extremely stupid...obv i wont talk about everything i think in details in the STM, or rub it in your face.

the only reason why im involved is because you're harassing my friend and i do not want her to suffer alone. its as simple as that. i will always support my friends in public, and correct them in private if i think they did something wrong. is random perfect ? do i think that she does no wrong ? ofc not. i'll always tell her if i think that she's not doing something right, the only difference is that i'll tell her in private, not in a discord server. how do you except anyone to listen to you if you already don't respect them enough to confront them privately and privately only ?

i think ive spoken for my part and i will not speak for any other people involved in this ridiculous drama. i think this is all really a personal issue with random (and also khamil apparently) and i do not believe that it's my place to speak for any of them. as i think your friend said, which i think is true, im not relevant in this drama, and again im just really here to support random but also to express myself when i think that its a general matter.

so ill conclude this by saying that this is a really disappointing document. posting the insults that have been told to my friend, for no reasons other than hurting her, giving her a few really serious and uncalled for diagnosis, posting her vents from when she was a teen to make her feel vulnerable, posting hateful and ableist comments about her publicly, posting comments of people insulting vulnerable members who need to vent and more...that is so, so petty.

jay, i didnt know you for long and we weren't super close, but i still liked you a lot (/p ofc). i know you'd love to think that you're the victim and that we are all just shit talkers who hated you or whatever, but that is not the case. reading the messages of the drama after the drama has been shocking. reading your tumblr posts, reading what your friends said to my friend, reading your document, all of that have been so disappointing. not here to play violins and act dramatic btw, this is just a fact i wanted to share.

theres a lot of things unsaid, but i think that it's really random's place to speak about it, not me or anyone else. id like to respect her opinion in all of this, so ive only really spoken about what i generally think :] !! that being said, i wont post this seriously about whats going on anymore except if i need to, thats why im blocking a few people too. i want to enjoy my post without child porn being rubbed in my face. i really feel like all this other part of the fandom wants is attention, so i wont focus my whole tumblr on them lol, but calling them out is still important to me. i dont except them to change their ways since they look so sure of themselves, but anyone can dream, right ? sorry about how disorganised it is, or if my english is bad and also for my spelling mistakes lmao 🤸🤸 ty for reading this far though !! please check out random's response when it comes out !!

[bitterrobin]

See, when people go full scorched earth fanon with their opinions on Damian (he's evil, he actively poisons Tim, tries to kill Tim all the time, and also warping everyone else around him to be meaner to Tim etc) I have two minds about it.

One half of me, the nerd "um ackshually" one that sticks to comics canon is generally in disbelief and anger about Damian's character being so degraded by the fandom to the point he's barely a character anymore. Damian is usually just an abusive plot device to either whumpify Tim or induce some weird righteous anger on Tim's behalf to justify his hatred and being the "right one" in the situation (when there is no right side). I actively try to write a lot of my Damian-centric content to battle against the idea and ignore these portrayals as much as I can.

The other half, the one that also adores comics but loves to read into fanon and pick it apart bc sometimes fan's opinions on characters are great and unique, goes "okay but what if I think about it?" If Damian is really this evil and terrible, that brings everyone else down with him. Dick is often mischaracterized as a terrible brother by default in these types of fics, and so is portrayed as intentionally ostracizing Tim or being utterly stupid and oblivious to Damian's antics. Alfred's even more of an enabler than he already is (for Damian in this case). A lot of other characters, Steph or Cass or Jason, are either Tim's holy protectors or just as terrible to him. And Tim...just comes off as a little immature bitch or the righteous one above everyone else. Either he's utterly unable to fight back against a literal 10 year old, constantly sick or dying, throwing tantrums over a mantle he did not create, has enough breakdowns you genuinely wonder if he's even fit for his Brucequest - or he does fight back, kicks the shit out a child, denounces everyone else except maybe Bruce (but its negotiable), and is positioned as the ever injured party who was wronged and deserves retribution and compensation. I don't know man, but then everyone just ends up looking like utter assholes. These aren't even Batman characters and heroes anymore, they're all dumb, angry, violent, or just weak enough that there's no way they're vigilantes who operate nightly. I concede they all do have various traumas and illnesses but at some point it starts to get ridiculous. Do fans of Tim really like portraying him as super mentally unstable and childish and do they really hate Damian that much? Is constantly writing him on his breaking point that interesting?

[kaitropoli]

"Louise-Marie de Bourbon, dite Mademoiselle de Tours; La fillette aux bulles de savon"

By Pierre Mignard

Oil Painting, 1681.

Château de Versailles.

PORTRAIT SUBJECT

La fillette aux bulles de savon, or the commonly found English title, Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles, is a portrait of innocence during the Franco-Dutch War.

The child shown is Louise-Marie de Bourbon, the daughter of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and his Maîtresse-en-titre, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart (Madame de Montespan). I'm sorry, I don't know why they popped off with the names like that when they're planning to reuse Marie and Louis fifty times over ptdr. Louise-Marie, affectionately known as Toutou, was an illegitimate birth (1674), later legitimized by her father when she was around two years old. She held the title of Mademoiselle de Tours from then until her untimely death in 1681.

According to sources, Mignard's painting of the six-year-old girl was finished posthumously. But, her innocence is held delicately, frozen in time on canvas.

THEMES OF CHILDHOOD INNOCENCE (TL;DR: YAPANESE)

Mignard's choice to paint Louise-Marie as an actual child was uncommon for the time (even centuries later, believe it or not; maybe not so good examples, but for argument-sake: Louis XV by Hyacinthe Rigaud, Mariana Victoria of Spain by Nicolas de Largillierre, Phillip II, Duke of Orléans, Reagent of France by Largillierre, and Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, "Mademoiselle de Chartres" by Largillierre -- apologies for throwing you strays, man, I'm trying to finish writing this and your children portraits were on the same website next to each other x), as young royalty are painted either as babies (unbreeched/baptize gown) or as tiny adults (fixed in uncomfortable poses and wearing clothes a monarch would), no in between. Here, Louise-Marie is playing with bubbles, her dog jumping towards it, and she looks carefree, still with chubby cheeks of rose. It doesn't help much that children were seen as heirs to the family fortune, especially during a time when parents had multiple kids due to illness (premature death) and bringing in income (need I explain more... *cough cough* coal mines... a bit anachronistic, sorry breaker boys, some other time we'll discuss y'all).

A painting such as this one, showing a realistic human experience from a royal status and that of a child BEING a child, innocence still intact, is quite important, even in today's form. We take childhood for granted, and kids are forced to grow up despite having more rights now than before. It can be a portrait to remind us that innocence is vital (a lack of childhood is detrimental as the experience is needed in order to mature mentally and emotionally when entering the teen and adult stages of life), but also that we as humans weren't so different from back then (sure, you can claim we bathe more than they do despite your husband still not washing his ass, but my heavens, did the thought 'wait, they had bubbles back then' ever occur to you?).

Genuinely, I was going to pull a La Muse Verte (the post where I briefly explained the history of absinthe) and go into the history of bubbles... because you gotta admit, that'd be fun for the both of us. However, delving into the background and theme of this painting became more heartbreaking for me. The bubble idea isn't gone, but it'll be postponed as a full history lesson post (and, yes, Mignard's painting of the immortalized Toutou will be recycled).

FURTHER READING (EXTRA SYMBOLISTIC DETAIL)

Plenty more symbolism is present, but I highly recommend you all check out L'Art en Tête's in-depth article on Mignard's beautiful portrait. I did regurgitate some of the author's points in this because I thought they were brilliant, and you can tell they have an art-history degree, so I'm begging you to go over there for more detail if interested!

[littlejowo]

Ngl there had better be a season 3 of ofmd tbh because like. At first I thought the finale was cute, but the more I dwelled on it the more I went "wow that was actually ableist as fuck and if they never address that, whether on-screen or from crew members themselves, I will be genuinely angry about it"

Spoilers under the readmore

So like. Izzy's death felt weird to me as soon as I saw it, but I couldn't figure out WHY at first. So I initially kinda glanced over it in favor of being like "awwww Stede and Ed are cute uwu"

But like. For one thing, I think it's kinda shitty how, if I saw it right, they...took off his prosthetic before burying him? As someone who uses a mobility aid (although it's a cane, but still) I could not IMAGINE having an ENTIRE LIMB, one that was a GIFT, be removed FROM MY BODY after my death...just so I could be without it? And have it made into a decorative (and not even symbolic) marker like "yeah here's the basically random and completely self-comforting place we buried him to make OURSELVES feel better, instead of somewhere meaningful to HIM. Also, here's the leg we gave him just to take away when we felt he didn't need it anymore, to show where the rest of him is"

On top of that, his death felt very, like. I dunno, lazy writing? Like they went for shock factor rather than actually have something meaningful? "Let's show this suicidal character growing as a person over the course of like 10 episodes, finally do him some hint of justice since we gave him none before, have him survive a suicide attempt, let him finally be happy...then kill him like three episodes after his suicide attempt." It really feels like a slap in the face to not only the fans who were rooting for him, but to people struggling with their mental health as a whole? It kinda sends a message, at least to me, that suicidal people can only be happy when they die. Which may be true for some, but it felt like...really underhanded and shady. I don't think there were ANY bad intentions, but it was still, in my opinion, a really shitty way to write out the end of Izzy's story. There were a million ways they could have had his death make sense AND have it be thematically consistent AND avoid ableist tropes, and yet...

I dunno. It really felt like they took a disabled, mentally ill character and fucked him over to make way for the canon couple so they could have their happy ending withiut the pining cripple getting in the way. Just like every other show does with its disabled characters. And then to TAKE AWAY his mobility aid? His PROSTHETIC LIMB? And to make it his GRAVE MARKER? I'm not sure if it was intentional, but that really does scream "fuck the disabled" to me. Like the writers deemed Izzy as being unworthy of a dignified end. His death would NOT have been much of an issue if it was treated with respect, as has been the case for other characters, but I feel like it just...wasn't. It feels POINTED

Idk. I'm holding out hope that we get a third season. And, if we do, I'm hoping that Buttons is gonna pull some kind of magic shenanigans that brings Izzy back, and that they address the ableist and anti-recovery bullshit that went on there

[theresalwayselvis]

Darling 

Hello loves! I just created this new blog because I wanted to get in on all this Elvis love. I used to write frequently but I haven't in yearsss so this is scary but my brain has been swimming with ideas that I just had to get out. All of the Elvis stories I have been reading are absolutely amazing and you all have inspired me to start writing again. With that being said: I would love any feedback sense it has been a while and I'm rusty. This one I incorporated a little of my own experience from being on anxiety medication so maybe some of you can relate. I hope you enjoy!

pairing: elvis x gn!reader

summary: You're struggling because you've been off your medication for too long. Elvis has a hard time fully understanding your situation so you bring him to a spot you think will enlighten him. Based off the song Darling by Halsey and somewhat by a scene in his movie Loving You.

warnings: talk of medication usage, mental illness, grief, mention of death, kissing, Colonel Parker

word count: 1,429

⊹₊┈ㆍ┈ㆍ┈ㆍ୨୧ㆍ┈ㆍ┈ㆍ┈₊⊹

The feeling of the warm sun shining through the window and caressing your skin was really the only thing holding you together at this point. It had been a few days since you have taken your medication, and to say you are struggling would be a tremendous understatement. Maybe you should have made sure to have enough to last you through the long weekend while the pharmacy would be closed, then again planning ahead was never something you have been good at. That’s how you made it here, staring blankly out the window, ignoring the look of pure frustration on your boyfriend’s face. Battling the absolute chaos going on inside your head was exhausting and left you with nothing but a stoic exterior.

“How can you be so explosive one second and stiller than a pond the next?” your boyfriend, Elvis, inquires incredulously. 

You wonder if he knows just how loaded that question is? He is aware of your struggles with mental health, but not so much as to how you have gotten to this point. 

You met Elvis while traveling with the All-Star Jamboree. You had accompanied Colonel Parker and Hank Snow along with the others on the tour, being helping hands for various tasks from sewing to tuning guitars. Growing up with no family or sense of direction, the traveling circus gave you a sense of belonging and purpose you had never felt before. That is, until Elvis Presley joined and stole not only your heart, but the hearts of anyone who was fortunate enough to be graced with his electric presence. Elvis had been your saving grace. You never knew what love was until he came along. You never knew what it was like to be genuinely cared for. 

Surviving is an arduous task. You learned that after aging out of the foster care system, never finding a permanent home. You took to odd jobs, constantly being quelled by those who were in a position of power over you. You had lost your spine well before you needed it most. Working for Colonel Tom Parker would be soul crushing for anyone, let alone you who had no means or energy to stand up for yourself. Letting everyone walk all over you was normal in your daily routine. 

Since being with Elvis, you have learned to regain some of your strength. You are no longer the meek and scared girl you once presented yourself as. He constantly let you know you should be treated with respect and voiced this to anyone who dared talk down to you. As nice as the gesture is, he was inadvertently enabling your behavior. Your spine was still misplaced, not lost as it once had been, but not intact.

“Y/N?” he asked as he touched your arm, startling you out of your thoughts. 

“I want to go for a drive,” you walked over to the door, putting your shoes on and staring at him expectantly, “Are you coming?” 

He stared at you for a second before putting his shoes on and grabbing the keys to his pink Cadillac. You drove in a comfortable silence, listening to him hum along to the radio while you offered directions occasionally. Where your directions led was the last place he had expected to end up. 

“Honey, what are we doing at a cemetery?” As far as he knew, you had no relatives, especially none who had passed away and needed to be paid a visit. 

As you walked into the sea of headstones with Elvis trailing behind, you stopped to pick some wild Black-Eyed Susans, taking the ribbon you had used to tie your hair up and creating a makeshift bouquet. 

Elvis watched as your hair fell out of its holder and cascaded down your shoulders. The way the sun made it seem impossibly shiny brought about a small smile that graced his ever-plump lips. He may not understand you fully yet, but he does know that you are wholly the most beautiful person he has ever known. 

He watches you as you stop in front of someone’s grave, a woman who died many years before. You gently kneel and set the bundle of flowers tied up in your blue ribbon right under the slab of rock that states nothing but a name and a date. 

“Who is she?” 

You crane your neck to give Elvis a small smile, “I don’t know but she seemed like she needed some company today.” 

Elvis furrowed his brow. Taking in the look of pure confusion on his face, you gestured for him to come join you. After a few seconds he complied, the gentle breeze sending his earthy smell into your nostrils once he got close enough. This served to calm you down as you took a deep relaxing breathe in. 

“When I was a little girl, I had to walk by this cemetery every day to get to school. I remember seeing the flowers that families would leave and thinking how nice it must be to still be loved and remembered even after death. But it also made me realize how many graves were bare day in and day out. I just knew I would end up like that. I wouldn’t have anyone to leave me flowers or even grieve me at all. So, I started bringing flowers for the people who had been alone all that time. Forever already seems lonely enough, especially when you have no one to spend it with,” you explained your antics the best you could. 

You looked over to see Elvis, your strong and brave Elvis, with tears in his eyes. He has never seen you so vulnerable. He thought he knew you, the deepest parts of you that no one else had ever dared venture to, and that is true to an extent. You have always been nothing but honest with him, but he has never seen you when you are off your medication. That door you sealed shut to not only protect yourself from the trauma, but others as well, unlocked when you became too exhausted from trying to guard it all on your own. 

“Baby, why are you crying?” Your hand reaches out and softly wipes the few stray tears lingering beneath his eyes. 

“I just…I never knew that was how you felt,” he began while taking your hand and lacing his fingers through yours, “I can’t stand you thinkin’ you’ll be all alone, not when I’m here. I want your forever. I want to grow old with you and when we eventually die, I want you to be right next to me. Our kids can come and visit us, bring us flowers, and spend time with us. But even on those days when no one shows up and the flowers die, I’ll still be right there with you. You’re right, forever is a long time, but no amount of time would be enough if I’m spending it with you.” 

He brought your hand to his mouth and kissed your knuckles softly. Now it was your turn to cry. Never in your wildest dreams did you think you would end up here. You had finally found what you had been searching for your whole life: love. You found it in the way Elvis cared for you. He was patient, but not afraid to speak his mind around you. He knew your quirks, knowing when to give you space and when to give you the affection your body so desperately craved. He was genuine, and real, and surely breathing life back into you. 

“I love you,” the words softly leaving your lips as you stared into those endlessly blue eyes. 

Elvis cupped your face in his hand, bringing his thumb to your mouth and tracing your bottom lip before leaning in and kissing you hard as if to bring you back to reality. You eagerly returned his kiss, knowing that the life you once lived filled with sadness and doubt was melting away like an ice cream cone not eaten fast enough on a hot summer day. 

“Maybe we should go home to continue this, I don’t think this lady would be too happy to know what’s going on just six feet above her,” Elvis joked as he stood up and held his hand out to pull you to your feet. You laughed, your first genuine laugh of the day. You had a feeling it wouldn't be your last.

“You know, foolish men have tried but only you have showed me how to love being alive,” you confessed knowing that every day spent with Elvis would be a day worth enduring all the trials you have to face. 

[ribbonpinky-art]

feeling melancholic and hopeless again. so im gonna just write out my emotions and none of it correlating. self pity post galore

im thinking about things. life is rough. so stressful. my mental illness is worsening by the day. lots of stuff happens behind the scenes that i choose to not talk about

and what im thinking about now, is that who was once one of my absolute comforts (junko).. im thinking abt that adorable little fumo plush of her i ordered several months ago is just sitting on top of my other plushies.. that i wasn't even excited to have her when she first arrived.

i didn't care.

and that hurt, knowing i didn’t, remembering how much she once meant to me.

same with my Chang’e. i want nothing to do with either of them now. they no longer bring me an ounce of comfort, only dread and remnants of a self indulgent story of kindness that once lifted me up. it all died. feels too idealistic. i feel like im too much of an outcast to let this story exist outside my private circles. i dont even want it anymore, or if i want to ever again

i think as of lately, focusing on oc’s (including ones i havent spoken of yet) has been better for my state of mind

doesnt help that im kiiinda only appreciated for my Junko works!!!! awesome!! i dont want to draw her anymore !!! fml!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! other people are better at drawing her than me anyway, ya wont miss me. lemme focus on my evil lady oc instead...

maybe im being melodramatic, and i do not care. perhaps in a few months i will be enamored with them again? idk. idc either

i feel more disconnected than ever to fandom, when i was seldom a part of any of it in the first place. im that person that exists on the outskirts, not really part of their community. im disconnected to people. i cant make connections with anyone, but i never could .. ok . i could, with a couple folks here and there. im grateful they want me around (not counting my partner of course, theyre the best thing thats ever happened to me. im not just lucky, im fortunate af we met at all)

im aware of my own issues- im autistic, im unmedicated when i probably need meds to regulate my emotions, i live in a toxic family. im triggered terribly easily, and when im hurt, it *hurts*.

 i fear that, because of my strange way of speaking and how a lot of my conversations are stilted, and what i perceive as unusual behavior-- i fear i make other people creeped out/uncomfortable. irl or otherwise. like, maybe ppl will be friendly to me at first, but after a year and i dont say much anything and im just this creepy, quiet weirdo to them now. and thats so silly. whats creepy about me?? im a pint size thing who cant even look anyone in the eye very well. is that creepy?? ok, i struggle to talk sometimes, i might be uninterested in conversation but i dont want to be disliked for it-- idk ((ok i have “Creep” by Radiohead set in my mind because of my mental state, and its kinda funny to me for some reason)

i genuinely feel like i lack intelligence. i suck at thinking. i suck at thinking of words, remembering things, and the tiny mistakes i do make are SO small that it should be impossible to make the mistake in the first place. was i always like this? i feel like i used to be smarter , lol

i am quite literally, a complete failure in my family. i cant stress the truth in that enough. even my grandmother is disappointed in me and only wants to see a text message from me saying i got a worthy job in my field. that only thing that matters to anyone, my one and only point of interest in everyone i speak to in my life even outside my family, is that i dont have a real job. thats it. everyone is waiting for me to be.. someone.

because im no one.

but none of them have been a particularly positive influence in my life, seeing as im stuck here.

i genuinely feel disgusting for existing. my body feels wrong to be in when i am visible to any human being. perhaps even to any animal and bug, too. i dont want to be looked at, to be remembered by anyone who wont understand me

nothing is changing!!!!! and when it is, its worse than before!! why cant i just be brave and GO

..

..

..

not all of this reflects reality. i beat myself up a lot. mirrin knows it. i know it.

it hurts

[shipcestuous]

I was SURE you had some kind of commentary post on The Banshees of Inisherin, so after watching it for the first time yesterday, I went looking for it to see what you thought about the relationship between the main character and his sister... but it seems I either imagined that post or confused The Banshees with another shippable movie set in Ireland!

Anyway, I really wanted to rec you the movie, in case you haven't seen it yet. It's very... I almost want to say "literary", because while I don't know if it's based on anything, to me watching it felt very like reading one of those novels written in a very literary style where the idiosyncrasies of a small, isolated community take on increasingly surreal, ironic, bittersweet, and eventually tragic tones... but always in a very "matter-of-fact" way, if you get what I mean, and with the quiet shadow of a civil war looming in the background. Very entertaining, if you like that sort of thing.

The story is set in 1923 and revolves around Pádraic, a nice, "salt of the earth" but insecure farmer, and his friend Colm, an ill-tempered aspiring musician and singer. The two meet every afternoon to drink and chat at the pub, until Colm suddenly decides Pádraic is too dull and boring and that it's all his idle chattering that's been keeping him from composing a song truly worth being remembered, and just as suddenly chooses to break off their friendship and never talk to Pádraic again. Pádraic can't wrap his head around this, and his stubborn and increasingly desperate attempts to get things to go back to the way they were will affect not just the both of them, but also many other people in their lives, changing Pádraic himself as a person and spiralling in a dramatic climax.

The only mention of canonical incest is between young and mentally fragile Dominic, another friend of Pádraic who is temporarily forced to rely on his hospitality, and his abusive father, who beats him and sexually harasses him. The whole thing is treated, again, in a very "small community" way: it's clearly not a good thing, but it's an open secret people aren't really supposed to say or do anything about, especially because Dominic's father is a cop. But as you can probably tell, talking about that relationship isn't the point of this ask.

See, Pádraic is generally liked by the people of Inisherin, but the only beings he seems to be actually close to are Dominic, Colm, his beloved donkey Jenny, and his sister Siobhán. Pádraic and Siobhán live together, with all the arguments that might be expected from two adult siblings sharing a house: could Pádraic just stop letting the animals inside, since it's Siobhán who has to clean up after them? Could Siobhán just warn Pádraic before she brings her weird friend home? The fact that they're very different people, with Pádraic being generally satisfied with his life as a farmer in Inisherin and Siobhán being the smart, bookish sister who doesn't really fit in, doesn't help.

However, the two of them genuinely love each other. Siobhán loves Pádraic for his kind nature, and despite being aware that he is indeed kind of dull, she initially attempts to defend him against Colm, whom she tries to talk into being his friend again. Pádraic loves Siobhán for her intelligence as well as her goodness and, even while trying to get her to be more sociable, he can't really imagine anyone genuinely not liking her.

When Siobhán finally has enough, both of her suffocating, monotonous life in Inisherin (where people do in fact consider her weird and unlikable) and of Pádraic increasingly dramatic and deranged feud with Colm, she accepts a job in the mainland despite being warned by others (and knowing herself) that Pádraic will be devastated by her leaving. Which he very much is! But he doesn't stop her. When she has settled into her new house and job, she writes him a letter, telling him about her new experiences but also asking him to move in with her, leaving his animals in Dominic's care and leaving the feud and everything else beyond.

Unfortunately, by that point something terrible has happened... so Pádraic sends back a letter with one harsh truth and a bunch of reassuring lies to make her think little else has changed and that he's okay, then goes right back to what his life has become, with all its bitterness, loneliness, and hatred. You've got to wonder if he will ever tell her what really happened...

One interesting thing is that Pádraic has no love interest, while Dominic is in love with Siobhán and clumsily teases her as he tries to flirt with her, but deep down he knows he doesn't have any chances with her, and when he confesses his feelings, she confirms right away that she could never love him that way.

Hi Anon!

You were not wrong. I did make a post about The Banshees of Inisherin, which can be found here. With some additional discussion in the tag here. I am so sorry that it was difficult (impossible) to find! In related news, I am going to remove the search bar from my sidebar because, for whatever reason, it doesn't work anymore.

For future reference for everyone, I list everything on this page (referred to as the relationships or ships index in sidebars and link lists and things like that, but it only gets updated every few weeks), and googling shipcestuous + the title of what you're looking for usually (not always) works pretty well.

Now that so many people favor mobile and tumblr's default is to present blogs in a dashboard-style, a lot of the sidebar links are almost obsolete and it complicates navigation things.

Anyway, I'm glad you took the time to describe the movie because it was such a beautiful description and you went into detail on things that I didn't or described things a different way so that's so valuable to have on the blog. I'm honestly giddy to have another Padraic/Siobhan shipper on board because I really love these two.

I just want them both to be happy and be together. Is that so much to ask?

[knights-of-the-glittery-table]

I wrote a very long email to an organisation that is there to help fight on behalf of people who want to complain about their medical treatment both physical and mental heath wise.

I was given the website in Jan by someone from a charity who used to be helping me out but I've only just decided to write to them as I'm so tired emotionally.

Hello,

My name is Jenny and I live in -. I'm - with severe depression, anxiety and agoraphobia. I was given the name of your organisation in Jan by someone at - but found it tough to be able to put into words how neglected and failed I was feeling. Unfortunately I ended up having a year just as rough as all proceeding it and I'm at the point where I feel so abandoned and without support I think I can talk about it.

I lost my dad at 16 and then mum at 20, I was severely mentally ill and unmedicated at the time (failed by my family GP the entire time who diagnosed me at 14 with depression but never prescribed any medications or counselling/therapy) and it was only around 24 years old I started to be medicated. 

The last 13 years have been absolute hell and I've been let down by not only the small amount of family I have (brothers of my mum who all live far away/out of country) but so very much by the medical field as well as organisations I've reached out to.

I've reached the point where all the fight is gone out of me and I just don't have any trust or hope left. I'm so desperate to feel supported and cared about but as I said tearfully to my friend not long ago, I feel that all these places supposed to help actually have made my quality of life worse and eroded my will to live.

I have 13 years of pain and hurt with an endless amount of it put at the feet of not being given the support and treatment a person deserves. The stress and effect on my mental health as well as physical health over time has genuinely put me into such a place of not being able to trust or hope when all I want it to be able to do both of those things.

To give just very brief idea of things, here are a few things off the top of my head from the last month or so:

Being in severe mental health crisis and told to call my GP surgery back if I felt worse. I rang back two days later only to be told it was a half day so the doctor had left but would receive a call the next day. Five minutes after the call ended I receive a text message to tell me I'd receive a call 5 days from then as already prearranged. Five days is a terribly long time when you are in crisis. The phonecall I then received was very brief and told me we'd go from the appointment set in place for the next week with a nurse.

This appointment that the doctor prearranged was to speak to a nurse who is the 'go between' between the GP and psychiatric and  it ended up being cancelled three times. By the third time the text no longer told me to get in touch to rearrange so I gave up. The days leading up to each appointment before they were cancelled (the last time it was actually cancelled an hour before I was due to go, by text) were filled with awful anxiety because my previous experiences with 'mental health 'liaisons/connectors'  were truly awful. The first one made me cry and when I tried to explain that to her she got aggressive and lacked any sort of empathy for mental illness, bringing her religion into it. I asked the GP to please never put me in contact with that person again. The other time I was sat in a room with a young woman who genuinely sat in silence and just stared at me. I felt rather baffled by the silence and so just kept talking about how I was feeling and finally after near 10 minutes she spoke up only to ask me what my caffeine intake was like and had I tried screaming into a pillow and playing loud music. I left pretty soon after. These two incidents were only this year, not even that long ago.

I tried to get in touch with my surgery late last month about arranging some support by having monthly mental health wellbeing calls the same way I arranged before the surgery changed hands this time last year. I've not heard back and I don't have the fight in me anymore to try and enforce it.

After being on the waiting list for 8 months or so with Talking Together Wirral they wanted to start some counselling the same time a brief 6 sessions with Cruise bereavement started. I spoke to them and they said they'd sort it out and get back to me. Instead on the first session with this new counsellor I was informed it wasn't possible to do both at once and that it'd have to be pushed back.(They were supposed to be in touch again by mid November, never were.) I was then deeply upset by this counsellor who informed me that depression and anxiety were manageable by counselling and meds and I didn't need a higher level of care. I spent all of this year being encouraged by the GP and the nurses I was speaking to from the mental health crisis line that I was doing the right thing trying to push for a higher level of medical psychiatric care so it just confused and upset me greatly.

I apologise for the length of the email but there has been so much, I mean the whole reason I was given your name in the first place is because the lady who gave it to me was deeply unhappy with the way I was being treated and the last 11 months have only added more to that list of ways I've been failed and deeply upset. (This connector I mention I haven't spoke to since Jan as in her words I was too poorly for what third sector can offer. I tried getting in touch during a mental crisis beginning of October to ask if the next time the dwp send me spiralling into a mental heath crisis I could ask for their help but she never replied. That had an effect on me too as you can imagine.)

There's a lot I could make complaints about, just the absolute lack of care from everywhere from the GP to the access team to the times I was an outpatient with dermatology and a hundred other places and people. I've been failed on every front, for 13 years and I can't do it anymore.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[eurydicees]

Hi....If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

hello!! i don't mind at all :D this question has been on my mind since you sent this a few days ago and i'm still undecided. like. i can't narrow it down to a list. that's so hard. i'm so indecisive. i'm putting these in no particular order, it's just a list. ordering them was too hard and i'm so small and not good at playing favorites. i'm only gonna do seven because this post got absurdly long. thank you for the ask!

haikyuu!!

oh my god genuinely one of the best written manga/anime that i've ever read/seen. it's so good. the characters are so vivid and they are all so important to me. every scene, character, arc, plotline...it's all treated with so much love and care and i'm so grateful for that. and the ending is SO satisfying--it all comes together so well. i was genuinely rooting for every character's success throughout the entire story. it's so important to me.

hadestown

this is a musical so idk if this is an answer you want, but this musical is so amazing, i have to mention it. it manages to encapsulate so many important messages while also creating a truly very compelling story. the way it reworks the original myth--staying true to the story, while putting its own twist on the world and the relationships of the characters--is truly brilliant.

next to normal

another musical. sorry for being a theatre kid on main. but fr this is genuinely one of the most important stories to me. it's gorgeous as a musical and as a story: the music itself is truly beautiful, the storyline is unforgettable, the characters are individually each so well-written and have so much depth. it means so much to me personally; the representation of an imperfect life, living with bipolar disorder and all that comes with it, the impact we all have on each other's lives, the exploration of relationships and mental illness and self-perception and healing and imperfect, non-linear growth....it's truly a work of genius in my mind.

bridge to terabithia

i know that this is a children's book but i recently reread it and it blew my mind how much depth, care, authenticity, and love is in it. it's a truly beautiful piece of art: i was so impressed by the characters, by the story, by the #Point of it all. it's a coming of age story but it's also so much more than just growing up. it's about imagination and childhood and friendship and it means so much to me.

fruits basket

this is such a beautiful exploration of character and relationships and abuse and love and family and friendship and the importance of a single person. it's such an important piece of writing. i would say that this is probably the weakest of the seven on the list, writing-wise, but i also think that the characters are so well-written, so expansive, and so fleshed out that it deserves to be on a top 7 list. each character has something special to bring to the narrative and i love that.

ouran high school host club (the MANGA not anime)

i'm soooo crazy about this manga. there's so much to unpack with every chapter, every arc, every character, every piece of this world...i love it so much. the characters each are so deeply loved by the narrative and i appreciate that. it absolutely has issues as a piece of satire from 2002, but i have forgiven tamaki suoh for his crimes so it's fine /j. but like genuinely, it has some of the most beautiful character and relationship development i've seen in a manga, specifically surrounding tamaki and haruhi. i know people have a love-hate or sometimes just hate relationship with tamaki, but he as a character means so much to me....i adore this stupid silly manga so much.

percy jackson and the olympians

i've been debating putting this one on the list for a little while now, but it has such sentimental value that i think it deserves to be here. it's one of my favorite childhood series and honestly that first series holds up! which is so refreshing to see because man that cannot be said about everything. i love the characters so so so much and the actual story is so brilliantly and lovingly crafted, and the way it all comes together and is woven into a beautiful ending makes me so wild. i do reread this series every few years and i have never once regretted it.

[seahdalune]

around Summer 2022, i got inspired to make tons of shitty daily art of my thoughts. kinda like a diary.

i never really made too many, since inspiration struck randomly while i was in the middle of summer vacation, and i was pretty busy.

still, the shit i made from that time was.... pretty interesting, to me at least.

i wanted to start making them again, since it was a nice way to warm up, and put my thoughts down.... and, i just liked doing it.

i posted all the original drawings on Twitter, but i decided to post my shit doodles on Tumblr this time. i heard people were better at receiving mental illnesses here.

(don't) Look forward to....

DaLune Whatever Doodles.

(old art under cut, for archival:)

(note: this was all drawn using my old persona, if you're wondering why i look like that. i used to have a hoodie instead of a raccoon mask! still covered up myself just as much tho.)

2022.06.26 (admittedly, i only started making daily shit scribbles because this one got a lot of attention. not even 100, but 20 or something likes. that's still a lot for original work tho. gotta start somewhere.)

2022.06.28 (post is captioned with the following message: "a story writer’s guidebook i have tells me to write down all my ideas or experiences in case i ever need them for brainstorming plots." it's a good idea, but my good ideas come with my shitty thoughts. i can never tell them apart, and it's always tiring to write both down.)

2022.06.30 (this post was captioned with the following message: "the whole “only x% of my viewers” and “subscribe and hit the bell” thing, in my opinion, has ruined the uniqueness of Youtuber intros. i probably should look into smaller Youtubers, but i never see those sword-slash-then-logo type intros. those were cool. bring those back." i agree, Seah.)

2022.07.01

2022.07.02 (i'm still closeted, will be forever. they're not explicitly queerphobic, it's just, just.... Asian parent complications.)

2022.07.03 (i think it was also because i didn't have Discord on my temporary phone)

2022.07.04 (this genuinely happened and it scared the shit out of me. i didn't remember this place being so noisy when i was 5.)

2022.07.05 (after this point, i also learned that most places in Korea don't take cash... aside from convenience stores, but they don't sell strawberry latte there!!!)

2022.07.06 (note: the original caption made on the post said the following: if i wanted no one to know about my deepest darkest secrets then i wouldn’t be posting them on Twitter! classy, Seah, real classy.)

2022.07.07 (i saw a white guy who was bald and i could only think of Walter White. this is revenge on what you USians have done with Squid Games and Korean people, shitheads.)

2022.07.08 (i hate hiking)

[ladybuggirl123]

The Ultimate Comprehensive Taxonomy Of The Friendship Breakup

After my last post I promised I would write something less terminally online.

A running theme in literally anything i’ve ever created is adolescence/growing pains/late stage youth etc. 11 yr old me probably thought I would be somewhat done growing up by now, but -as cliche as it sounds, I’ve barely begun. (I know, I’m sorry)

The hardest part of acting my big age is letting go of situations and people that no longer serve me. I love to wallow in nostalgia. If I could live inside of a memory instead of experiencing new and unfamiliar horrors everyday I would. Unfortunately, nothing can remain as it is in the present forever, and the relationships, places and physical manifestations of myself I have grown accustomed to could cease to exist at any moment.

This is something I find pretty easy to make peace with as far as romantic relationships go, but a friendship breakup is a whole other beast. As a romantic, yet flighty, and emotionally immature 21 yr old teenage girl I’m pretty aware I can’t rely on any of my sexual or romantic entanglements to last forever. So much so to the point where I can be extremely avoidant or self-sabotogical in these situations. However, I find it almost too easy to blindly trust that my platonic friendships will last and fulfill me forever. Maybe this is unhealthy… maybe it’s fine… doesn’t matter because that’s not what we are here to discuss.

Ultimately sometimes your friends leave, or you have to leave your friends, or it turns out someone you thought was your friend was never your friend at all. These dynamics and more we will explore today in my taxonomy of the friendship breakup. 😁

BREAKUP #1 “The Robert Frost”

This is probably the least emotionally disregulative breakup. Sometimes the girlies grow apart, sometimes two roads diverge in a yellow wood and you simply cannot travel both. Usually in this situation bridges aren’t burned and you still get to cheer on your ex bestie from the sidelines (liking their instagram story), and maybe someday your paths may cross again….

BREAKUP #2 “The Jekyll and Hyde”

Sometimes overnight and without warning your OOMF turns into your OOME. Maybe you saw this coming, maybe you were completely blindsided like sandra bullock (idk i didn’t see the movie). Regardless, this friendship breakup can have you questioning everything. Did they see you as a close friend the same way you saw them? Should you be more choosy about the people you let in close? Will you ever get the money you dropped on Car Seat Headrest tickets back? Inconclusive.

The important thing to remember in this situation is that if this person is a genuine shithead, the only thing you’ll miss about this friendship is the qualities the other person brought out in you. The best part is now that you’ve been made aware of these qualities you can call them forward at anytime + you don’t have to have a dumb snatchwhore bringing down your ethereal vibes.

BREAKUP # 3 “The Dorian Gray”

Most frequently seen in friendships between the mentally ill, the Dorian Gray can occur when one party cannot keep up with the other’s debauched lifestyle. I cannot speak on the experience of Dorian Graying another person (although I’m sure I’ve done it to a boring bitch or two), but I have been through my own personal Dorian Grayification a few times.

At first you are drawn in by the nonchalance and carefree attitude of your new friend. “How do they relate so heavily to what I’ve been through all while seeming so much cooler and more put together than I ever could?”, you may ask yourself. The answer is sex, drugs, and rock and roll music.

You’ll hang around them more and more and become cooler by proxy. Until one day you wake up in the middle of a 2 month long kratom bender, your joints ache every time you sneeze, your coughing blood into a handkerchief like it’s 1895, and your fighting homeless people in the park for $50 a win every Thursday night. Meanwhile, your friend’s skin is clearer than ever, they just started contributing 40% of their income to their roth ira, and they recently took up barre method classes.

These people don’t die. There is something different about them. You however, are a mere mortal and need to run away as quickly as possible before your life story becomes the source material for the next Harmony Korine film.

BREAKUP #4 “The Horror Movie” alternatively “DONT FUCK UR FRIENDS AT 4am GONE WRONG. GONE SEXUAL. SHE CRIED??!!????!”

Oops!!! You accidentally s*cked ur friends d*ck, or l*cked their cl*t or a*e their a*s, NOW WHAT?

Unfortunately for me, I have found myself in this situation multiple times. Because -as my ex therapist put it- I need to “work on being less seductive in inappropriate situations”. Whatever. If you are well adjusted in anyway this could be the beginning of a beautiful romantic relationship, but if you are anything like me it is the beginning of the end.

Shit gets awkward. One, or both of you will pull away or completely detach from the friendship. All the while pretending everything is perfectly fine. All this pain and suffering created because you liked each other a little too much and you’re just a little too sexy.

The only advice I really have is to think really hard before sleeping with a close friend… I guess. Or don’t cause low key it’s fun but I didn’t have to tell you that.

Look- sometimes as human beings we are over taken by horny demons, but what separates us from chimpanzees is we can fight those demons. So stop chimping out and don’t take your friendships for granted you sexy little minx.

BREAKUP # 5 “The Radiohead” (udoit2urself) (sorry this is the only title idea i had)

Well it had to happen at some point. You can’t be the victim your whole life (just most of it). Sometimes the breakup is irrefutably your fault and you are the bad guy. At least you recognize it!! Maybe you won’t make the same mistake ever again or- maybe you will.

You basically have two choices: to let the friendship dissolve or to try and salvage it. You are already a huge asshole right now, so try to be completely unselfish for one moment in your miserable life. What’s best for the other party? What makes the most sense in the grand scheme of things?

If you are letting it be you again have two choices: to apologize or to not. Sometimes you are going to act like such a huge cunt that genuinely, for your ex friends peace, you should never speak to them again. Most of the time a well thought out apology goes a long way.

If you want to make things work again, it’s going to be on the other person’s terms. There’s a chance they won’t want to be your friend ever again, and if they do want to be your friend you’re not going to pick things up where they left off. It takes time to rebuild trust, it can sometimes take years to regain the closeness you had before.

On the bright side, a friendship empire that has fallen and been rebuilt is one of the strongest forces known to man. It provides pretty solid evidence that you have each other’s best interest in mind even when you disagree or don’t get along.

xxxxxxxxx

I’m not really sure how to close this. There isn’t a lot I could say to spin anyone leaving your life before you are ready to let go into a good thing. I think we all struggle to deal with the fact that we can’t control how other people perceive or treat us.

I guess over time your biggest interpersonal tragedies can turn into your funniest dinner party stories (or bits for your therapist [so you can win therapy by being their most hilarious client]), and all the good memories you have that sting to recall become more like snapshots of your past self as you continue to evolve and change. In the meantime… journal, listen to a podcast have a glass of wine (why do I sound like a millennial.. I’m sure I have the same coping skills as Lena Dunham) and listen to Supercut on repeat. Don’t feel ashamed of yourself for mourning a platonic breakup sometimes more deeply than a romantic one, you just have to ride it out bro. ur gonna be ok.

Much love,

Logan