#which is most likely unhealthy but unhealthy love and obsession stems from trauma

[innovativestruggles]

Yuta & Rika - a speculative analysis

Like with basically any fandom out there, I'm about 3 years late with JJK 0 😩 Regardless, I finally watched it yesterday and subsequently really, really needed to discuss this topic before I forget.

As an anime only fan, I only heard of Yuta from bits and pieces in the anime and from the fandom. That would go for Rika too so I never really understood the extent of their relationship until I watched JJK 0. But oh man, when I watched it, these two took my entire heart and soul.

And whilst I do get why Yuta is shipped with Maki or Inumaki, Rika wins it for me. And before I jump into my explanation, I want to say it outright - Yuta and Rika gives me strong Obito and Rin vibes 😳

Anyways let's talk about Rika.

This sweet yet psycho girl is a super side character (much like Rin), but I did a bit more research into her and it explained so so much more about her character and why she is the way she is (both as human and cursed spirit). Rika lost her mother unexpectedly at the age of 5 and then her father during a hiking trip together at the age of 11. There are speculations (by paternal grandmother) that she is involved in the death of both her parents. I cannot say too much about whether a 5 year old would have too much influence over their mother, but I will shelve this for now. I want to focus on Rika and her father. There is an explanation that one of Rika's biggest dislikes is older men. Let me tell you this - an 11 year old child with an adverse dislike for a specific portion of the population (older men) points towards one thing - abuse. This is an educated guess on my end (and if I was given a case in real life about this, I would come to this hypothesis as well), but the trauma Rika endured shaped her personality and how she would end up attaching herself to Yuta. We don't know exactly what sort of trauma Rika went through, but my guess is some form of physical or sexual abuse. The development of a 'manipulative' personality towards adults is a form of a survival mechanism developed to keep herself safe. Rika's father most likely had a role in her abuse and hence the mystery of his disappearance (and how it alluded to the fact that Rika had something to do with it, together with the explanation of her manipulative personality).

Let's come back to Rika's mother. There are two theories/hypothesis to this.

A 5 year would have enough cognitive capacity to understand that they are in an unsafe situation. However, it is unclear whether Rika's mother had any involvement in Rika's abuse. But what I presume is that she did not have a close relationship with her mother. The reason? She gave her mother's wedding ring to Yuta. A child impacted by abuse by one parent and not the other means they would naturally be attached to the safe parent, so anything sentimental attached to the safe parent would give the child a sense of safety. To give something special away like her mother's ring means her mother meant very little to her, so Rika decided to re-symobilise the ring into something new - something for Yuta. And because an 11 year old most likely cannot afford a ring

The second theory would be that Rika had a close and safe relationship with her mother, and the giving away of the ring to Yuta symbolises the safety and security she finds in him. I.e. the element of safety and security she found in her mother has been transferred to Yuta (via the giving of the ring).

Regardless of what theory we go with, there is too little information regarding Rika's relationship with her mother. We don't know what happened to her mother, whether she died of natural causes or was murdered. But all we know is that Rika most likely endured severe abuse by her father (that may or may not involve other older men).

Looking into Rika's personality. Her proposal to Yuta is a dead giveaway of her need to locate a safe space. Yuta is Rika's safety net. They met at a time where both were quite vulnerable - Yuta being unwell and Rika having returned from a mountain climb where her father went missing. Rika's proposal is an indicator of her need for a new life, the idea of marriage is to be permanently attached to her safety net and to have Yuta take her away from whatever she experienced. Of course, 11 year old children do have a basic idea of what marriage is, but it seems like Rika has more of an underlying idea of what she would like to utilise the marriage concept for - that is, to escape and re-establish her safety within the one person she loves and trusts. This explains her personality as a cursed spirit - jealous, overprotective, intense, emotional and childish. Through trauma, Rika learnt ways to ensure she is kept safe emotionally, psychologically and physically. She is always having to survive day by day until she is finally able to manipulate her father out of her life (again this seems a likely scenario, given the very little info readers are provided). When the one person (Yuta) who comes into her life finally allows her to be a child - to play, to have fun and give her the life she should have been having, naturally Rika would be overprotective of Yuta. As I mentioned, Yuta is her safety net, and to have him taken away (by bullies, by another love interest etc), is the decimation of Rika's own safety.

We were given only very small snippets into Rika's life and what she was like as a human. But her personality carried over into her cursed spirit form, and the basic information provided in the character profile, are both more than enough to deduce that Rika's background is incredibly complex with multiple layers of trauma.

One really big thing I would like to point out is Rika's comment before she moved into the afterlife - she was happier accompanying Yuta as a cursed spirit than when she was alive. This is another important piece of information that showed Rika most likely experienced a significant amount of trauma as a human. What would force an 11 year old child to come to such conclusions? The only answer is abuse. As a cursed spirit, Rika is able to escape everything and be by Yuta's side (almost like the prospect of marriage - "take me away from all this and let me be by your side forever")

For Yuta, I can't speak too much about him because his background as a child is essentially a mystery. Not sure about his parents and how he grew up. But judging from his bond and connection with Rika, I presume he grew up quite lonely and friendless. Whether there was trauma, I don't know but it did mention he had to distant himself from his family when Rika became a cursed spirit. Regardless, Yuta's acceptance of her proposal and his happiness at the prospect of being together forever with her as they grow older indicates to me that Yuta may have some complexities in his childhood we don't know about. But it could just be that he genuinely had a normal childhood and Rika was the one and only person outside his family he connected with. However, we don't know whether his timid nature occurred before he met Rika or after she became a cursed spirit. There are too many unexplained parts with Yuta. Anyways, we know Yuta loved Rika immensely (as much as Rika loved him), and his refusing to accept her death is an indicator of his feelings towards her. Their love for each other is pure and innocent because they allowed each other to live in safety and to be children.

And even after releasing her spirit, Yuuta still held onto remnants of Rika. I do love the idea of Yuta being able to move on and give himself to someone else, but I feel Yuta has a lot more unprocessed emotions regarding intimacy - that though he freed Rika, he seems forever bounded by being with her and only her.

So here's my conclusion for this pairing - their background and their pure love is what really made me love them so much. Does all this sound very Obito x Rin to you? Whilst Yuta is able to bounce back from the grief with the help of a mentor and friends, Obito never did. But they both shared an immense amount of grief from the loss of their loved one at an early age.

And yes, I seem to love my tragic rare pairs...dear oh dear.

Anyways, these are all speculations based on canon materials. So if you have any interesting hypothesis, I'd love to hear it!

[starsreminisce]

tbh even E/riels are disappointed with acosf but they don't say it to others although they talk about it among themselves lol I used to be one so I should know. acosf was Nesta's books everyone expected to see Elain more bc she was close to her and they also heard about the training so they were 100% sure they were going to see E/riel training scenes (the very one they accuse Gwynriel for being boring and they don't want Nessian 2.0 lmao) so when they didn't get that they started commenting on Gwynriel post of how they wanted Elain instead of Gwyn in those scenes (specially the shadows dancing around Gwyn and the private dagger lesson) and that's when the toxicity started and I knew this place was not for me anymore. even tho I used to be a bypass in the fandom and not actually fixated on the books I saw enough threats and bullying, it was bad. I came back on acotar fandom this summer after a very long time and even now the reek of jealousy from that side of the fandom is recognizable. the pure ignorance and delusion is quite amusing, they know E/riel won't happen but they have to make it look like they don't so their years of being obsessed with a fictional ship and bulling other fans, the author and publisher won't got to waist yk. bc when I read acosf for the first time I knew Gwynriel is endgame and even before that I wasn't a huge E/riel fan but I wanted to tolerate them for the possibility of them happening and not Elucien (after the end of acofas we weren't sure who would be endgame and I was quite sad bc I was more incline toward Elain and Lucien)

anyway if they were so confidence in their ship they wouldn't do none of that and let others enjoy their time being in the fandom.

Oop that’s some piping hot tea right there.

Honestly, why couldn't they just be as chill as Azris shippers?

Azris shippers understand that the likelihood of their ship is slim, but they can manifest and hope for the best. Through Love, all is possible!

Yes, it's quite possible! I can passionately support Gwynriel and Azris in tandem. E/riels can readily accept that Elucien is the endgame couple while finding delight in the hints and potentials of E/riel until the next book's release when perspectives may change. Although there may still be Neris shippers out there, I haven't observed any significant disrespect directed toward Nessian. It's possible that I might not be searching thoroughly, but it's heartening that it's not as prevalent as the mainstream rivalry between Elucien and Gwynriel vs. E/riel.

I perceived ACOSAF as a retcon of Elucien, as Elain's abrupt shift from suggesting Lucien move to Velaris to ignoring him lacked a clear explanation of their deteriorating relationship. More on this later.

I get why E/riel shippers held onto hope after ACOSAF, even though I viewed their connection as more platonic. Azriel's deep love for Mor was abundantly clear in the series, and the Hybern scene hinted at the endgame couples, particularly Moriel, which was reinforced by SJM's deleted Pinterest.

In my view, Gwyn embodies a blend of Mor and Elain, sharing Mor's trauma, the ability to fit in with "one of the boys," a girl-next-door quality, and an interest in combat, while also displaying Elain's quiet and reserved nature.

On a more serious note, it's entirely possible to appreciate a ship without resorting to belittling anyone, whether it's a character without proper canon context or an actual person. Doubling down and resorting to insults becomes even more embarrassing. Perhaps this is due to a reluctance to acknowledge the scarcity of E/riel content to draw from.

Ironically, my anti-E/riel posts stem from my restraint in responding to most of their takes but they aren't inclined to listen, and I lack a suitable outlet to release my frustrations.

Additionally, I take issue with the way many books romanticize red flags as desirable relationship traits. It's crucial to recognize that Azriel's hesitancy to be his true self around Elain is an unhealthy dynamic, and it's not Elain's responsibility to change that. When someone acknowledges their actions as a mistake, it's wise to believe them and move on. This situation is reminiscent of the problematic "Twin Flame" concept, which often excuses negative behavior under the guise of a deeper connection.

But, thats why I don't like E/riel in a nutshell.

Gwyn and Lucien are fictional characters written to have a lot of trauma in their backstories. While they are not real, I can easily consider what you say about them as a reflection of what you truly believe to real people who have gone through something similar.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

whoops i did a cprime rant on the fanfiction Reddit

NO ONE GETS C!TOMMY AND C!DREAM RIGHT AND THEY DEFINITELY DO NOT GET THEIR DYNAMIC RIGHT. c!Tommy gets it slightly better, by virtue of having his own dedicated insane fan community, but while c!Dream also has it they lean wayyyyyy too far in making him a misunderstood bad boy and come out with a character as alien to the source material as whoever they’re arguing against.

c!Tommy is a very excitable, brash, and crude teenage boy. He’s outwardly rude but inwardly very kind, and is almost painfully empathetic, something that hurts him as much as it helps. He defines himself by toxic masculinity, but adores nature and cute things and sewing. He lashes out frequently, but is rarely malicious. He’s almost impossibly self sacrificing when it matters, but is a bit of a selfish dick when it comes to petty stuff (which like, again, teenage boy lol). He's traumatised and mentally ill, and that affects every part of him, but he’s also so much more than that. The way people write him, he’s either this poor sad woobie with no edge who's most destructive responses to trauma- namely, his impulsive tendency to fawn like crazy- is a good and healthy way for him to develop, or he’s a malicious little shit who provoked his own abuse and throws a pity party selfishly, caring about no one but himself.

c!Dream puts on a front of being an emotionless, cruel, and evil villain, but the interesting part about him is that his true self is even more terrifying. Believing himself to be a well intentioned extremist, his desires for a big happy family instead stem only from his own desperate need for companionship and approval, something he also paradoxically completely rejects in his own orobousian cycle, and he’s willing to commit horrific atrocities and traumatise those so called friends for that goal, whether they want it or not. He’s deeply sentimental but terrified to show weakness, so he pretends to not care about anything while growing more and more obsessive over everything in his life. It’s difficult to tell what parts of his sadism are real or an act, and it grows more and more clear as time grows on his concept of friendship must be deeply unhealthy and possessive. He's genuinely doing what he does out of love- yet that does not make him a good, or even redeemable person. He’s a fun inversion of the “all loving hero” trope, basically. But he’s written either as a bland, emotionless villain, or the cruel side of him is written off completely and he's just this loving woobie- despite his actions being so disproportionate he can hardly be called a well intentioned extremist and this requiring his brutal abuse of a teenage boy to be excused, normally by putting the blame on that boy (and that boy is c!Tommy).

Now, these two's “friendship” is fascinating because it shows how different yet similar they are. Early on, they were genuinely friends, but c!Dream always saw c!Tommy's iron will as a threat and wanted to control him. He grew more and more extreme in this goal, eventually cumulating in him making a plot to get him exiled from his home so he could physically and mentally beat him into compliance. There’s a lot more I could get into, but basically, the two have a very complicated set of feelings on each other. c!Tommy understandably despises c!Dream, but he was conditioned into some pretty severe Stockholm Syndrome, and can’t help but see c!Dream as a friend and empathise heavily with him, even dying doing so. Meanwhile, c!Dream sees c!Tommy both as a scapegoat he can treat as a literal idol of defiance, and a genuine friend in an incredibly messed up way, wanting him to rely completely on him and to be a tool in his plans. He takes joy in c!Tommy's suffering, but the last thing he wants is him permanently dead- he has, on multiple occasions, promised/threatened to make c!Tommy immortal for him. c!Tommy has picked up on this, and has referred to c!Dream seeing him as a plaything, a puppet, and a pet, and finds the idea more terrifying than anything else, even the mere thought causing panic attacks.

When their relationship isn’t just turned into a wholesome fluffy friendship to make c!Dream seem more sympathetic, either one of two things will happen. Either c!Dream will be portrayed as completely uncaring towards c!Tommy, willing to throw him aside for anything and genuinely hating him and wanting him dead, when the real horror of their story is that c!Dream would never allow that to happen out of some twisted sentimentality. Or, c!Tommy is portrayed as in some way equally as fault for the disastrous state of it as c!Dream, be it for causing chaos non maliciously, or helping his brother start a nation, or being annoying, which are equal crimes to abuse now I guess. And then they’re expected to have a mutual reconciliation where they both apologise (a scene like this did eventually happen in canon, but c!Tommy's actor literally clarified it was intended to show c!Tommy being irrational and making bad decisions, that he shouldn’t have apologised for anything, and he was genuinely kinda disturbed how people thought c!Dream was in any way sympathetic, funnily enough).

[redphlox]

Dabi's fear of feelings and connections

Dabi is a walking contradiction; he says he doesn't care about anyone, but his flames, which are linked to his emotions, demonstrate otherwise when Twice is killed. Dabi brushes off the news that Natsuo could have died because of him but still refers to him affectionately as Natsu-kun. Touya went around calling Endeavor out for neglecting his children but still trained to regain his approval and attention anyway. He lashed out at baby Shouto, admitted Shouto had done nothing wrong, and then attacked him again years later. He cries blood while thinking about his family but doesn't go home to them or change his actions which hurt them even more. Dabi wants to destroy hero society for a better future but it's obvious he doesn't plan to live long enough to see that future.

The gaps between his actions and his words are a result of dissociation and repression. It's not that Dabi is emotionless. Actually, he feels too much and he's afraid of his feelings because they've done nothing but hurt him emotionally and physically. He literally almost burned to death the one time he had a burst of emotion on Sekoto Peak and in order to prevent a repeat of that, he operates under the flawed notion that safety lies in repressing his feelings and pushing people away. He lies to himself and others and therefore cannot reconcile with his true self and can’t trust others.

In this meta I'll discuss how Dabi deals with his unprocessed feelings of betrayal and neglect by denying himself connections with both his inner wounded child and those around him. I'll also address a few misconceptions surrounding Dabi because dismantling them is key to understanding him. Contrary to popular belief, he does not want to kill his father, he never wanted to be a hero for his own sake, and he doesn't hate Shouto or his family. At its core, Touya's hurt stems from discovering that his relationship with his father wasn't based on unconditional love. This realization destroyed his sense of self so much it caused him to start fearing his own feelings and being close to others because of the link between his emotions and his self-destructive quirk.

To understand Dabi we have to understand Touya. In 291 we see through Endeavor's flashback that Touya was eager to train under him and carry his legacy. It's implied by the fact they’re working on ultimate moves that not only is Touya a willing, eager participant but that the two have been training together for quite some time. In 301 we learn that after Touya's quirk started hurting him Endeavor not only abandoned the training regime but also abandoned Touya both emotionally and physically. Instead of using the time he spent training Touya to help Touya find a new hobby or purpose in life, or just hanging out with his kid, Endeavor chooses to remove himself from Touya’s life. When Touya confronts him about the change of routine, Endeavor is seen putting on his jacket and leaving the home, his body turned away from his son.

Maybe Endeavor had errands to run, but my point is that he was in Touya’s life one minute and then gone the next. Touya says so himself: why did Endeavor change his mind all of a sudden? The abrupt change in attitude was jarring for a 4-5 year old to handle. To Touya, training = love, so he felt compelled to keep training and demonstrate his worthiness despite the fact that his quirk was hurting him. To Touya, the pain was worth it if it meant hanging out with his dad again.

But why? Well, Touya was Endeavor's #1 fan, genuinely so. His admiration and fondness for his father was genuine, and he didn't question the triumphant look on Endeavor's face when Touya said he wanted to learn the ultimate move. Before his quirk started burning him, Touya had no idea he was born for his father's ulterior motives. He had no reason to question his father's attention. Touya lived under the impression his bond with his dad was genuine and special, and he probably felt lucky that his father was willing to share something so important to him (heroism). Even after the training stops and Endeavor stops paying attention to Touya, Touya still wears his merch and vies for his attention. Most kids see their parents as larger than life and Touya was no exception. Keigo Takami admired Endeavor the hero, and Touya Todoroki admired his father who just so happened to be the hero Endeavor. Since being a hero was such a big deal for Endeavor, it was a big deal for Touya.

But that's where Touya's story becomes tragic. His father is a flawed, flawed man with many insecurities and fallacies that he pushes onto his family. I’ll get to those in a moment, but as intelligent and observant Touya is to catch on that Endeavor never set out to marry to become a father, he is too young to separate himself from his father’s expectations. Touya realizes he was born for a purpose and Touya will be damned if he doesn't fulfill that purpose even if he knows it's wrong. His father's ‘love’ meant that much to him. For Touya, it's not about becoming a hero for the glory. It was about his relationship with his father because, as I mentioned earlier, Touya was his #1 fan in the sense that he loved Enji just for being his dad. There were no conditions tied to that. “You are my dad, and I love you.”

But that wasn’t a sentiment that Touya felt in return, and that hurt Touya. He internalized he wasn't good enough, that something about him was inherently wrong. But more than that, his world came tumbling down - he felt betrayed and lied to: his father didn't love him like Touya needed him to, and this truth destroyed him. Their relationship was a lie, a farce, and it hurt so much Touya became obsessed with not hurting anymore because he couldn’t get away from it.

Touya’s motivation to become a hero didn't rise from being inspired by All Might like Shouto. Touya’s thought process wasn’t "I want to be a hero to help others or be like All Might" like Deku. No, Touya only wanted to be a hero because he wanted his father to be proud of him for surpassing All Might. Notice that Touya's obsession with beating All Might slowly diminishes from “I can surpass All Might” to “I can surpass All Might like Shouto, too” to just “look at me, Endeavor.” It was never about being a hero per say, but about his relationship with his father. Touya realized that Endeavor isn't his father first, but a hero, and he understands that he has to be a hero too to fit into his father's world. Even upon realizing that his father was using him, Touya still wanted to be part of his life, still wanted that bond. Touya, in his desperation to be loved and accepted again, could look past his father's selfishness as long as he regained that approval. Touya could pretend the relationship was real as long as he stopped feeling so unlovable.

This is unhealthy thinking, of course. Even if Touya somehow managed to regain Endeavor's approval, the relationship would still be one-sided and dissatisfying because he wouldn't be able to ignore the truth. But, this is how he rationalized his insistence to keep training in his 4-5 year old mind and this line of thought stuck with him as he grew up just as those feelings of inadequacy never left him.

This is precisely why Natsuo's drowsy "can't you go talk to our sister?" hurt so much. Touya was already emotionally fragile, and hearing that felt like being rejected all over again when it was actually Natsuo just trying to sleep. Touya was hypersensitive to any words or actions that could be interpreted as dismissive. His trauma wouldn't listen to logic that Natsuo was 8 and too young to understand, that he was tired - no, Touya's brain said, you're being rejected again! This is also why he also stormed away crying from Fuyumi after she expressed her concern for him.

In Touya’s mind, why couldn't anyone just agree with him that he was good enough? He heard "your dad's right and you're not good enough so why try" not "I care about you, your father is wrong, and I don't want you to keep getting hurt" whenever Rei tried to get him to stop training because that's the message he got from his father, too. Nevermind that it infuriated Touya that his mother could stand there and preach to him when, from his perspective, she couldn’t take her own advice. All Endeavor ever did was teach him to turn up the heat, so why should it matter that doing just so hurts him? Touya didn't understand NOT training his quirk because he had been taught that raising his firepower was ideal in all situations. Those two statements didn't make sense to a 4-5 year old, a 13 year old, and it still doesn’t make sense as a 24 year old.

To take Endeavor's lack of self awareness a step further, because it's important to understand Endeavor to fully understand Dabi, Endeavor has yet to realize his own inherent worth. He doesn't have to prove anything to his family, especially his kids. They love him unconditionally, without special reason aside from the fact that he's theirs and he's himself. However, Endeavor is so obsessed with proving himself that he doesn't realize he never had to, and he projects this onto his children. They must prove themselves by winning the genetic lottery, by being useful to his plans, by surpassing All Might.

The irony that to be a great father he doesn't have to be a hero at all is ugly because Endeavor has no identity outside of being a hero. Endeavor has said before he wants to be a good hero and father to make Shouto proud, but he fails to realize he already had this in Touya all those years ago and it still left him unsatisfied. The issue isn’t his role as a hero, it’s his inner self. In 301 Endeavor literally reaches out to Touya to talk him out of training and hurting himself, and Touya allows his father to touch his shoulders because he wants a bond with his father - any bond. Shouto, on the other hand, wouldn't allow Endeavor to touch him in 167 and slaps his hand away because he doesn’t want Endeavor’s approval. Endeavor doesn't realize Natsuo carries deep abandonment and neglect issues because he wanted to be accepted by his father too (light novel #5) but was ignored. Endeavor doesn't realize he was always good enough by default and that by projecting onto his kids and trying to be the top hero he’s doing the opposite of what he wants. He just keeps pushing away his family.

It’s important to point out Endeavor’s illogical thinking because Touya learned some of these same ideas. Touya repeatedly tries to prove himself without realizing that he was always good enough by default. The problem wasn’t his quirk or his body, but his father’s flawed thinking and self-worth issues. Now as an adult, Dabi is selfish because he's Endeavor's son and emobidies his most negative characteristics. Dabi thinks of his flames as Endeavor's, and he thinks of himself as an extension of Endeavor because that's how Endeavor set him up for life. Touya has no identity to fall back on after his father casts him aside. He was supposed to be Endeavor 2.0, but now that title is Shouto’s. Dabi doesn’t hate Shouto as a person, but he has tricked himself into believing Shouto is their father’s puppet. Shouto is a doll being used by their father with no self agency, and Dabi is going to break all of Endeavor’s toys. It’s nothing personal against Shouto, it’s just Shouto’s bad luck that he happens to be Endeavor’s masterpiece. This is why Dabi doesn’t hurt Shouto when they first meet at the training camp, and why Dabi stops attacking Shouto after Endeavor passes out - it’s not about Shouto. It’s about Endeavor, and breaking Endeavor. Touya is still there trying to be part of his father’s world, only this time not as a hero but as a villain who will end his own suffering. He doesn't want Endeavor to die, he just wants him to suffer, to ruin his dreams. Dabi thinks of it as justice.

But because Touya is still there, there is still that goodness in him, too. His connection to Fuyumi and Natsuo is still there, repressed and compartmentalized. It’s why he calls them affectionately as Fuyumi-chan and Natsu-kun. Touya’s pain is so great he has decided he’d rather end it than to carry on and look elsewhere. He's stuck, rightfully so. He recognizes his mother is a flawed person and ultimately doesn’t blame her for being a victim - she could have done more for her son, but he still sees her and his other siblings, even Shouto, as people who fell victim to Endeavor’s abuse who don't challenge their situation. Dabi sees himself as someone who does stand up to the abuse but doesn’t realize he still wants his father’s attention. He's always wanted it. That's why he went around at 13 condemning his father's treatment of his children but still trained to prove himself. This is part of the reason he became a villain.

Not to mention that Dabi literally can't cry. He has no way to release those emotions, so instead of trying to let them out, he pushes them down. But that doesn't work and is detrimental in the long run. In 290-294 we saw Dabi's flames burn so hot during his confrontation with Endeavor and revealing himself as Touya that his burns have spread. Dabi is afraid of his feelings because of their connection to his flames, but he also uses his feelings to his advantage. He wants to go out in an inferno along with Shouto just to hurt Endeavor and put an end to his own suffering and Endeavor's career. This is why Dabi doesn't bother calming himself down or denying that he never forgot how he was treated when he lived at home. Dabi became emotional in that battlefield, smiling maniacally instead of crying because he physically can't cry. In his mind, if his feelings are going to destroy him, he might as well use them to prove a point. After all, he has experience being used. It's why he was born.

I'm not saying any of these actions or thoughts are healthy or correct or condoned, by the way. Trauma responses don't make logical sense and usually aren't healthy. Knowing how the mind responds to trauma, it's understandable that Touya still wanted his father's attention even if it was abusive. In fact, this is how children often respond to abuse. Their caretaker/parent is all they know and they cling to these figures. Often times when authorities try to remove a child from their abusive parents, the child doesn't want to go because this parent is all they know and they do feel like they love their parent/caretaker. I’m not saying the authorities got involved in this case, because obviously they didn’t, but this same mentality of abused children can be applied to Touya. Touya, in his four year old mind, probably convinced himself that if he was good enough everything would go back to how it used to be.

So, to sum up Dabi’s character, of course he doesn't make any sense. He’s still that hurt 4-5 year old who is trying to protect himself from ever getting hurt like that again while still wanting his father’s validation. Of course he doesn’t want to get close to anyone, not even the League. He doesn't want to be vulnerable or let people in or form connections because the last time that happened he was let down, forsaken, and it hurt so much it literally made him lose control of his quirk to the point he almost died. When Twice is killed, Dabi consoles himself by saying he didn't care anyway, all to prevent another emotional fire. Dabi is a master of compartmentalizing and boxing away his feelings - this is probably why, 310 chapters into BNHA, we have yet to have a few chapters in his POV or his backstory. He's disconnected from himself. He knows his plot to get justice will hurt his siblings and mother and to live with himself and move forward he represses those feelings.

Because of his father not showing up on Sekoto peak, Dabi has to live with physical disabilities due to his scars and memories of burning alive. He doesn't want to go through that again so he lies to himself that he doesn't care about anyone or anything. He denies that he's still in pain while simultaneously seeking validation of his pain. He acts like he doesn't care about his family but still calls them affectionate names. He acts like he hates Endeavor and calls him by his name but still wants his attention. He decided long ago that he would die destroying Endeavor's career because that was the thing Endeavor cares about most of all in this life. It's a "you hurt me so I'll hurt you" mentality. He has tricked himself into thinking this is justice, failing to realize this won't make him feel better if he doesn't die by his own hand along the way.

Dabi is full of resentment and spite, both of which take root from feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and the loss of a purpose and the realization that he wasn't born to be loved for who he was but as a tool for his father. The first betrayal he suffered was in the form of realizing his father didn't love him genuinely, and this was identity-breaking for him. He never recovered from it. The second betrayal, the reinforcer, was his father not showing up to Sekoto Peak. Since then, Dabi is reliving his trauma over and over again the more he uses his quirk and the more he faces Endeavor. To be saved, Dabi needs to accept that he is loved unconditionally and needs to be validated that he was right to feel thrown aside and used.

[sohmaluver]

let's stay together!! 

sooo a while ago i had my heart set on making character studies and corresponding playlists for the fruits basket characters, starting with akito and making my way through the zodiac and so forth but i lost a lot of energy in the process but i figured now i will buckle down and do it!! i have a huge fruba playlist that i made for me to enjoy this summer which does include most if not all the songs i will cover here but thats besides the point!!

i'm getting ahead of myself but basically, i want this to be in-depth - this isn't some chaos remix but a character study where i break down backstories and traumas through music. join along on this adventure if you'd like! (WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS)

today we will start with akito:

akito is a very sensitive discussion across the furuba fandom. it's very much a "you love her" or "you hate her" sort of situation. personally i believe that neither should be the case.

if we look from the beginning, akito's trauma stemmed from her mother's abusive words on top of her father constantly telling her she was special. being given the title of "God," being forced to present as male, as well as being elected the family head since birth forced akito to grow up very fast. (this is partially what makes akito weaponize her femininity.)

akira's words as well as her mother's neglect are what led to the creation of such a needy child in her. we see her in various situations where she wishes to be held by the older boys, particularly hatori. akito's bond with the eldest zodiac boys grows here, particularly her bond with kureno and shigure. akito at this time is still very young and impressionable; regardless of that fact she develops her unhealthy obsession and belief that the zodiac is around to love and serve their God (her).

even after his death, akira's words still held onto akito: so long as she held the bond with the members of the zodiac everyone would love her. this starts to fall apart after kureno's curse breaks. it sends akito into hysterics as she feels she is losing the grasp and control she has on the zodiac members.

going into a further dive, akito's relationships become more toxic and abusive (from both sides). arguably this stems from shigure's confession to her at such a young age; another reason forcing her to grow up quickly but also forcing her to use her body to make herself appear desirable to the zodiac men so that their bond will not break.

at this point we've seen all the other abuse akito has brought upon the younger zodiacs and how deeply they affected the youth, once again this abuse was used to show that akito was in power and control and to mask her fear that the zodiac might be slipping from her. this is a huge reason as to why akito hates tohru so much. yes, akito uses her as another means of control but at its root akito envies tohru for her geniune bond with the zodiacs. tohru is arguably the true God of the zodiac which is what akito geniunely wanted from the beginning.

when we reach the final arc of the series it is so refreshing to finally see the lengths of akito's abuse to catch up to her. it's here when she releases all of her wrongdoings with the stabbing of kureno and tohru falling off the cliff and she is able to accept that she has been the abuser all along. (everyone say thank you miss tohru honda)

as we jump to the end of the series, so many fans are so quick to say that akito doesn't deserve a redemption arc. the truth of the matter is akito never recieved one. by the end, everyone has simply decided to move on. it is known that akito's actions are unforgivable and even akito herself is able to see that she doesn't deserve to be forgiven. this is what makes akito such a good character. even though she caused so much harm as an antagonist her growth is what makes her such a well written character in this series. she is honestly one of my favorite characters and i think her arc and growth is some of the best the series has to offer.

songs:

are you satisfied? - marina and the diamonds

always forever - cults

animal - sir chloe

you should see me in a crown - billie eilish

real men - mitski

bust your knee caps - pomplamoose

runs in the family - amanda palmer

god must hate me - catie turner

[mccoyyy]

moving this to my new blog so I can pin it again lol

@stregoni-benefici you are completely correct but I just wanted to expand on this a little bit - also i’m putting this under a read more cause this got a lot longer than i originally thought it would be

sexism: smeyers treatment of female characters throughout the entire series is extremely problematic. like you don’t even need to read deep into the books to see that. the backstories of all her female characters all involve some form of trauma and are significantly more violent than the male vampires (Rosalie and Esme enduring physical/sexual assault meanwhile Edward dies of the flu and Emmett gets vibe checked by a bear).

she also creates the idea that a woman isn’t complete without children/being a mother. every female vampire in the series is desperate for children yet can’t, its mentioned in pretty much every book and extreme emphasis is placed on how tragic this is. a female character wanting children isn’t wrong or sexist at all but the way its written in twilight makes it seem like its something a woman has to do in order to be happy and smeyer pretty much cements this idea by making Bella suddenly desperate to have Renesmee despite showing no interest in children/audibly voicing her thoughts against having children in eclipse and the start of breaking dawn (i’m pretty sure Bella has a line of dialogue in the books where she says something like she didn’t realise it was something she wanted/needed until it happened bit I’m not sure I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

there’s also the way she writes female characters, specifically Rosalie. its mentioned throughout the series that Rosalie has extreme mechanical skills and multiple degrees in STEM fields but its barely ever shown, and instead her characterisation focuses on being obsessed with her looks (first couple pages of this, written by smeyer for new moon), and being a ‘stereotypical bitch’. for the first three books most of her character/dialogue is based on being cold and rude to Bella. She is unnecessarily painted as the villain for having different views on Bella (quite literally) giving up her life and future to be with a man (which is a whole other can of worms). the same is done to the character of Leah in eclipse/breaking dawn. Leah is a woman in the Quileute Tribe, she has been severely affected by the Cullen’s presence in the area and is painted as a character that the reader is supposed to dislike simply because she doesn’t like Bella/the Cullen’s despite having extremely valid reasons not to

anti-Native - smeyers treatment of native tribes is horrendous. she has profited fr years off of of native american culture for years and has done so without any acknowledgements. furthermore, she also demonises native american teens (especially in new moon) by calling them wild, violent, dangerous and out of control and then uses these stereotypes to create a contrast between the self control and patience of the Cullen’s and make them seem more like the good guys, and the wolf pack being lesser. She does this again with the treatment of Jacobs character in new moon and especially eclipse.

Jacob starts off in new moon as Bella’s best friend. he helps Bella come out of a severe depression caused when Edward left at the start of the book. however in eclipse his character makes a complete flip and he becomes moody, temperamental, argumentative and disrespectful of Bella’s boundaries. his character becomes unrecognisable and despite smeyers claims of a love triangle, it is obvious what the outcome will be. I have seen countless instances of people on this site claiming they hate Jacob because he is a dick/disrespectful/just as unhealthy as Edward. this was done on purpose by smeyer as she uses Jacob to make Edward seem like the obvious and correct choice for Bella. if you need more proof of this, take the scene where Jacob kisses Bella without her consent and she breaks her hand when punching him, Edward swoops in and almost gets into a fight with Jacob for touching Bella without her consent. this is an obvious attempt to make Jacob seem like the villain and Edward the white saviour

there’s also the treatment of the native characters by the white characters in the books. multiple times in the series, the native characters are called/compared to dogs/brutes and have a distinct unpleasant smell. I don’t think I need to explain how this is racist. the pack also helps the Cullen’s/saves Bella’s lives and never receive any acknowledgement/are treated any better by the Cullen’s/anyone really. the pack are only ever used as a way to make the Cullen’s look better.

there’s also some pretty obvious similarities to colonisation with the Cullen’s entering Quiluete lands which then forces them to start phasing into wolves (and I’m pretty sure none of the pack actually want to start phasing). also, remember Leah? the only female member of the wolf pack? because of the change she effectively can’t have children? that has implications.

and to top it all off, after doing all that, smeyer has never once addressed this or even acknowledged the Quileute Tribe.

pedophilic - I mean even without mentioning breaking dawn its pretty awful. first of all you’ve got the blatant sexualisation of minors throughout the entire series. Edward is 17 throughout the series and smeyer is writing literal paragraphs about his chiselled abs. Jacob is 16/17 when she has him running about forks topless with a 6 pack. this is way more apparent in the movies but its still a huge issue in the books and lead to Taylor Lautner being confronted by adult fans trying to get him to sign their underwear, and being forced into being shirtless for most of the movies which made him extremely uncomfortable (Elizabeth Reaser (Esme) briefly talks about this in the ID10T podcast on spotify). and just as a reminder, Taylor was 16 when the first one was filmed and 17 for the second.

Breaking Dawn is a whole other can of worms. the glaringly obvious issue is Jacob imprinting on a literal newborn baby. now the concept of imprinting itself has racist elements to it, but its heavily implied in the series that imprinting will inevitably lead to a romantic relationship. Jacob imprinting on Renesmee and waiting until she is old enough to enter into a romantic relationship (never mind the fact that shes ‘old enough’ she will still technically be 5) is pretty much grooming. The same happens with Quil and his imprint, Claire (a two year old) where I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in breaking dawn where Jacob and Leah are watching Quil play with Claire and talking about how Quil isn’t going to date anyone because he and Claire are ‘pretty much inevitable’ (i might be wrong though, like I said I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

smeyer has also written a spin off book (its like 250 odd pages) called the short second life of Bree Tanner (Bree is that newborn vampire killed after the battle in eclipse by the Volturi btw). In this book, Bree is 15 almost 16, and another character Diego is 18 which is definitely pushing the boundaries of ok. (also as a side note, funny how Bree and Jacob are literally the same age and smeyer states multiple times how Bree deserved better and is only a child (who straight up kills people), yet when it comes to Jacob he has to be a responsible adult and is vilified for every mistake he makes)

racist - smeyer refused to let Catherine Hardwicke (director of the first twilight) have a diverse cast because she ‘imagined them a certain way’ (white) and it was a fight to get Edi Gathegi cast as Laurent and had to compromise with smeyer to make Bella’s friend group more diverse. this woman straight up refused to hire more diverse actors and only agreed to when they were side characters/villains.

Also in the official companion book/guide to twilight, smeyer literally writes that vampire venom makes you white

‘the venom leeches all pigmentation from the skin into a more indestructable vampire form…regardless of original ethnicity a vampires skin will be exceptionally pale’ (official illustrated guide pg.69)

this is a whole lot of bullshit cause she is literally whitewashing characters, but when you pair this with the idea that vampires possess inhuman levels of beauty it becomes extremely problematic and implies that being pale/white is more beautiful than darker skin tones.

also, if we go back to Laurent’s character for a second. so Laurent is one of the only characters who isn’t described as white (in the books he is described as having a pale olive skin tone) and in the first book he comes across as pretty reasonable (warning carlisle about James/Victoria, travels up to Denali and tries out the veggie lifestyle) but in new moon, his characterisation pulls a 180° (sensing a theme here) and is suddenly trying to kill Bella as a favour to Victoria and is Evil™ despite in the first book he literally says to Carlisle he didn’t particularly like travelling with James/Victoria and was only really doing it for convenience. where did this undying loyalty come from? yet again, smeyer is completely disregarding established characterisation in POC characters specifically to villainise them.

and finally, we have Jasper. for some reason (that reason being that she is racist) smeyer decides to make Jasper a confederate soldier in his human life. if you don’t have a lot of knowledge on the american civil war, the confederacy were the side of the US that seceded from the union in order to keep their slaves. Jasper was a confederate soldier, and not just any soldier, but a major. Jasper was a major in an army that fought for 4 years to keep the existence of slavery (and don’t even try to say that slavery wasn’t the root cause of the civil war. states rights aye? states rights to do what). now there’s an argument out there made by certain fans that a lot of people joined the confederate army out of pride/were forced into it cause of conscription to try and head canon the racism away but like that doesn’t matter. there was literally no need to make jasper a confederate in the first place. if she was so desperate to have a civil war vampire then she could have made him a member of the union. its been common knowledge that the confederacy was racist for a long time now, smeyer has absolutely no excuses here.

a lot of these issues overlap and I have probably missed heaps of issues (so feel free to add on) but hope this helps explain why smeyer can *ahem* get tae absolute fuck

[zeleniafic]

Hello!! Can you please tell me everything about Tansy Evans and her story? I think Cicatrix means scar, I could be wrong about that, and that last edit looked amazing and now I’m super curious. If you don’t mind talking about it a bit?

Hi!! I absolutely can and would love to!!

You're correct, the title of Tansy's story is Cicatrix, defined as: "the scar of a healed wound. a scar on the bark of a tree. IN BOTANY — a mark on a stem left after a leaf or other part has become detached."

So Tansy is, as that edit showed, the identical twin of Lily, and her name of course follows the Evans girls theme of flower/plant names, which is where the inspiration for that title came from. In Cicatrix, Lily is the leaf that has become detached, and Petunia as well in a different way, while Tansy herself is the mess of scar tissue left behind.

Cicatrix is... a story about a very damaged and broken individual. Tansy survives the first wizarding war, but she's never going to be the same after the things she lived through, including the very violent loss of her fiancé (one of the Prewetts) and too many friends to count, and when it all culminated in losing Lily she was fundamentally, irreversibly changed as a person.

And the thing is... a lot of stuff happened to Tansy in the first war, just like a lot of stuff happened to EVERYONE — but that's not where the story kicks off. Most of that has already happened in the past, and when we meet Tansy in her narrative... the character she is is the result of those traumas. As I have always planned it, Cicatrix begins during the second war, but then the main plot REALLY kicks off in the wake of it — when Tansy finds herself with an unprecedented chance to rewrite history, she seizes it, regardless of the dangerous implications of changing time.

When Tansy crash lands in the 70's she's back in her teenage body, with the memories of decades into the future, and she's just as if not even more damaged after the second war (and, especially, after watching George Weasley relive her own worst trauma by losing Fred)... she's really honestly in a horrible mental place. Saving Lily is her ONLY goal, it's literally THE only thing she cares about — killing Tom Riddle is a mission she stumbles into purely because she sees it as step one to guaranteeing Lily's survival, not because she wants to save the world. She's there for her sister, and no one else. It's honestly a very unhealthy, obsessive and single-minded determination and her personality seemingly changing overnight really alienates her from a lot of her original friends and family, because the Tansy that returns from the future is not at all the Tansy they are used to.

Throughout the course of her mission to kill Tom, she's healing a bit more and more as time goes on. It is 100% intended to have... maybe not a happy go lucky "everyone survives" type of ending, but it's not going to end in tragedy. Tansy carries so much pain to begin with I don't think I could stand to write it otherwise; Cicatrix at its core is supposed to be a story about pain and healing — about the things that we will always carry with us, and the things that we find a way to let go of. She carries some of each, both the burdens that never leave and the ones that she manages to move past, which is a theme that tapped into some really heavy IRL events for me when it was originally plotted and which is why Tansy has always been a very meaningful character for me personally.

She will never be the girl she once was but she DOES heal throughout her story, and the war is ended and Lily and James live to raise Harry themselves, and no one but Tansy and the person she accidentally brings back in time with her will ever remember a world where Harry James Potter was an orphan.

[mbtiofwhys]

Goro Akechi

ENTJ

Functional Order: Te- Ni - Se - Fi

Spoiler warning This article will cover Akechi’s typing with precise references to both P5 plot and P5R new confidant and added scenes. An additional premise before progressing further: we don’t think Akechi suffers from any form of mental illness, functions loop or even lasting grips. All his problems revolve around a heavy imbalanced stack, consisting of two developed extroverted functions (with the dominant being unhealthy) paired with underdeveloped introverted ones.

Judging Functional Axis

Extroverted Thinking (Te) / Introverted Feeling (Fi)  

Akechi is an absolute pragmatist, always opting for the most efficient, reliable and profitable approach - in right and wrong. His Te is the most developed function in the stack, but during most of the game it doesn’t show in a healthy way. Akechi has a clear goal in mind and knows the steps he needs to take to accomplish it, it doesn’t matter the cost or what he has to sacrifice to achieve Shido’s downfall. He uses logic to solve problems and confront various situations, and can easily come off (reasonably) as cold or over assertive - for example, when he blackmails the Thieves into siding with him to push through Sae’s Palace. And despite being the newest member of the party (and, in theory, the most inexperienced one), Akechi has no problems slipping into lowkey leading roles and bossy attitude, as both Futaba and Ryuji repeatedly point out. This is because, actually, he has a lot more experience in the Metaverse: he’s one of the strongest Persona user in the game and the oldest one, and thus he puts this competence at use, even if he has to lie about his true powers. At the same time, Akechi enjoys being in charge, being efficient and being recognised as competent, at the point that this becomes one of the crucial flaw in his plan against Shido: he never doubted being in complete control of the situation, so he failed to acknowledge Shido’s true intentions and manipulation until his shadow-self revealed them in the engine room. His Te shows even in the feelings of hate and jealousy towards protagonist: Akechi is brilliant, he’s a hard-worker and a celebrity, from a logical standpoint he’s the definition of success in life, and yet why does protagonist have everything Akechi never had? Royal does an additional job of showing how much Akechi cares for competence and competition based on strength and personal abilities, as these themes are carried out over the whole of his confidant. His powerful Te is badly counterbalanced by an underdeveloped inferior Fi. His Introverted Feeling is not only weaker or misused, it is straight absent for a good portion of the game. Looking at inferior Fi on a more superficial and less personal level, we can see how Akechi despises the Thieves’ “justice”, as he doesn’t believe in a justice carried out outside of the law, and this trait doesn’t get lost in the new semester, as he often places sardonic comments on the group’s ideals. Moreover, everything regarding the emotional sphere is deemed as worthless and a sign of weakness - and this, too, stays the same during January. Though, the real problem with his Fi is that it’s so poorly developed that it has no part in his decision making process - even less than what’s the norm for a Te dom, at least. His plan to get revenge on Shido stems from a deep, personal hate and is fueled by the unjust society he lives in, but that is as far as it goes. Akechi never stops for a moment to reflect upon himself, his believes, what he truly wants or feels and, in the end, this leads him pursuing a hollow goal that costs his life in P5 vanilla and almost kills him in Royal. The engine room scene is where events come to a head: with his back against a wall, Akechi must finally acknowledge his own feelings regarding the whole situation, his life decisions and his supposed hate for Joker. In P5 vanilla, this ends with him sacrificing his life in order to let the Thieves escape the ship, since he came to terms with his mistakes and found a way to redeem himself and still fight for a cause by entrusting his mission against Shido to the group/ to protagonist. In Royal, however, we can see a further development of his Fi: it doesn’t properly bloom, but it’s a start. Akechi still remains highly pragmatic and very dismissive of anything regarding feelings, but at the same time he’s more self-aware. We see him finally fighting for something aligned with his moral (rather than for ensuring a “mere” revenge) and with a strong sense of self, rooted in his will to make decisions by his own and follow his own path in life, even if this means he will have to die again once Maruki’s reality will come to an end.

Perceiving Functional Axis

Introverted Intuition (Ni) / Extroverted Sensing (Se) 

Akechi’s Te is paired with a not-so-strong auxiliary Ni. Not that Akechi doesn’t use his Ni - he simply doesn’t use it at even half potential. His Ni is what makes him so focused on a single, long-term goal: getting his revenge against Shido, even if this means working for him for years and committing murders (TeNi). The problem with this lays in the nature of Ni: since it’s an introverted, perceiving function, it needs to abstract outside data to find meaning and patterns to use in decision making. But Akechi, from what the game tells us (because his awakening is never shown) seems to have skipped this process of finding a meaningful and personal outcome to one’s life in the long run - maybe partially because he was angry, and partially because he was young. And thus, he works for something that in the end reveals hollow and meaningless. Ni is paired with Se in the stack, thus it should be supported by the ability to consider more options during the process of data collection. A healthy, high Ni user has a certain amount of flexibility, even as a J. They will never be open to new possibilities like a high Se user, but they should still be able to take reality into consideration while deciphering future scenarios, knowing that life is complex and one can’t rely on a single vision about how things must play out. And Akechi not only overlooked establishing a meaningful goal for himself, he also became obsessed over a single mission without considering a broader spectrum of options through his tertiary Se. We don’t believe he suffers from a TeSe loop, though, because that would mean a person becomes reckless, focused on short-term results and incapable of properly seeing the consequences of his actions. This is probably not Akechi’s case, as he is a very meticulous person who doesn’t act hastily, even under stress (with the sole exception of the engine room scene). For the whole game, he can stay steps ahead of the others, always trying to figure future implications of his actions, and the mistakes he makes (the pancake scene and protagonist's failed murder) are due to a lack of data and information to process, more than recklessness. All those events happen while Akechi is outnumbered: he’s alone against a whole team of Persona user. And even with the Thieves’ plan, a completely unrelated call from Shido is sufficient to raise doubt about the outcome, so much that he personally goes inside Shido’s Palace to check. His tertiary Se is still present though and, as an extroverted function, it shows in more visible manners than his Ni and Fi. Akechi is a TJ, and thus needs plans, structure and closure. This doesn’t mean he’s rigid or slow to act, on contrary, he can adapt pretty quickly as long as the situation is under control. This is due to his tertiary Se, which allows him to live in the world without getting too lost in his mind - a trait that he uses to shape and wear his public persona, the ace detective mask. Moreover, even if he isn’t a P, Akechi learned the basics of the Metaverse alone with hand-to-hand experiences. We can assume that Shido gave him information about the Metaverse, but at the same time Akechi never had a group of peers to consult. During his collaboration with the Phantom Thieves, Akechi not only shows a developed Te -always being ahead of Sae’s schemes to hinder the group- he also takes a more leading role with proactiveness, taking important decisions quickly. Akechi finds a logical and efficient way to solve problems not only as a Te dom, but also due to his Se which aids him with its adaptability and openness, obviously limited since Akechi needs structure first, but still effectively as a tertiary function.

Also typed as: ENTP, ENFJ

ENTP Surprisingly, since it’s a completely different stack. So, why he’s so commonly mistyped as ENTP? The main argument we could find is that he’s an ace detective/ devil’s advocate, but this is quite an oversimplification due to stereotypes. Firstly, because his public persona is different from his actual personality: in front of the cameras, he’s a rookie detective who loves to debate things, but in real life, this practically shows exclusively in his confidant - so, with protagonist. In every other situation, Akechi tends to stay down to earth, with matter-of-factly statements and a tendency to go straight to the point and solve a problem. Moreover, Akechi never shows signs of Ne - the love for debating isn’t a trait exclusive to Ne and Ti users. On contrary, he’s clearly focused on a single goal due to his auxiliary Ni. Also, Ne shouldn’t be confused with Te. Akechi has an admirable ability to understand the underlying patterns of a problem, but not as a way to evaluate a broad set of abstract options, rather as a Te dom tendency to solve a question quickly and efficiently. ENTP also implies Fe, but cognition must be separated from behaviors. Not all Fe users strive for validation, and every human has a need to belong to a certain extent. Akechi seeks Shido’s attention and acceptance because he’s his father, it’s an unhealthy and human reaction to a deep trauma that defined his life. But if we go to the root of his behaviors we can see how Akechi doesn’t care about social harmony or general wellbeing. He’s never influenced by the emotional environment, and he lacks self-awareness because he doesn’t use his inferior Fi, not because he has a poorly developed Fe.

ENFJ ENFJ and ENTJ shares the NiSe perceiving axis, so we can see why ENFJ is a common mistype. At the same time, ENFJ implies dominant Fe. As we stated above, Akechi’s underdeveloped inferior Fi and his traumas may mimic an unhealthy Fe. However, Fe implies a deep will to create the most positive emotional environment for everyone, a tendency to care for the wellbeing of everyone and, if unhealthy, Fe might mask selfish needs with what is best for other people, or shift the blame onto others for personal mistakes and flaws. Akechi does the exact opposite, and it’s very clear during third semester how much he holds dear the concept of free will and the idea of being his own person, with all the bad choices he’s made. He doesn’t care if the world Maruki has created is ideal and peaceful: it’s fake, thus is a manipulation, and he’s done being manipulated, therefore he wants to shatter it because, to him, it’s worthless living a life that isn’t determined by one’s own actions. Additionally, an ENFJ will use dominant Fe paired with his auxiliary Ni to envision the most plausible and realistic process to reach a goal, which generally is something related to the global wellbeing of other people. Akechi, on contrary, is very rational and logical. The best solution is the one involving the most easy route to solve a problem, he never takes social harmony into consideration and never stops considering what others might think: if they’re with him, that’s good, if they don’t agree, he either crush them if they directly oppose him, ignores them, or forces them working with him.

[feynavaley]

What do you think about the slavic siblings? Their personalities and relations to each other?

Wow, that’s one loaded question! 😅 I’ll try to answer, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to in a satisfactory way.

First of all, a premise: like I have said in regard to other characters, the Slavic siblings aren’t among my favourite characters so I don’t have such a solid and well-analysed characterization for them as I do for others (chiefly, the FACE family members). Moreover, they’re quite complex characters and they appear a lot in canon which means that, without focusing specifically on them, it’s easy for me to have missed something. Nevertheless, I can try to give a brief answer (just touching what I think are some core aspects of their personalities) to the best of my abilities.

Ukraine

I’m starting with her because she sounds like the easiest one to pin down. She’s stabler than her siblings, at least. I see her as a woman who witnessed a lot of suffering during her childhood and had to mature quite fast because of it – but, instead of becoming jaded, she turned her suffering into empathy and compassion. Knowing so well what suffering means and how it can damage people, she does her best to always treat others with kindness and patience, to give them a chance to get better before writing them off as ‘bad people’. She has seen what violence does and she wants to break the cycle.

Her compassion makes her very motherly, too. Once she gets fond of people, she actively looks after them and their well-being. She’s the kind of person who is at her happiest when she sees the people around her happy. She thinks more about others than about herself – but not because she values herself little or because she has low self-esteem, it’s because she thrives in helping other people. She’s mostly happy with herself and wants to externalize this happiness, to see other people reach this level of satisfaction as well.

People can see her as weak because she isn’t loud, she has a tendency of being quite emotional, and she doesn’t assert herself unless it’s truly needed. She’s the kind of person who prefers to smooth things down instead of being stubborn. Yet, she can also be very firm when she wants to. In particular, I can see her being very protective of her family members.

Russia

Oh, where do I even start about him... he’s such a complex character that I really am not sure of how I see his characterization. I’ve seen many different takes and I found myself agreeing with and enjoying wildly different ones.

The thing about Russia is that I see him as a living, walking contradiction. The fandom is past the days when he was simply dismissed as ‘cruel’ or ‘evil’ and now tends to acknowledge his loneliness, the suffering he had to endure during childhood, and the wish he often expresses to get closer to other people. However, he also undeniably shows a cruel side at times. I can fully acknowledge that this may come from the fact he was subjected to so much violence that he ended up internalizing it as an acceptable way to behave, but this doesn’t change the facts. He doesn’t seem to care too much about hurting other people as long as he reaches his goal. I think both aspects of his character needs to be acknowledged. This duality is part of him.

The impression I ultimately got from Russia is that he’s an extremely self-serving person. He does care about other people, but only in relation to himself. If he’s nice to someone, it isn’t because he genuinely wants the well-being of that person but because he wants what that gesture brings to him: that person’s gratitude and potential friendship. I also think he can get to genuinely care about people (his family, for example) and, in this case, be upset if something happens to them because they are suffering and, conversely, try to make them happy not only because it would make them more well-disposed towards him but also because he just wants them to be. However, this is limited to a small circle of people. When anybody else is involved, I have the impression he just doesn’t care. Not that he would hurt them out of nowhere, but he wouldn’t see it as a problem if he needed to in order to get something he wanted. I don’t think he would enjoy it – but he wouldn’t regret it too much, either. Likewise, he wouldn’t stop to help them unless there was something in for him as well. It’s almost as if he didn’t actually have a sense of morality and of what’s wrong or right. He just takes what he wants and cares when he wants to. Almost like the way a child reasons.

Belarus

Belarus is another mystery, as far as I’m concerned. Like Russia, she seems to carry the scars of a harsh childhood. She’s determined and strong-willed, always working hard and doing her best to get what she wants, but also pessimistic and carrying frankness to the point of rudeness; she doesn’t seem to care at all about people outside from a few selected ones. Personally, I see this as the sign of a person who has suffered much and is trying to protect herself from further suffering by distancing herself from anything that could become a weakness. Moreover, I read her as one of those people who use the strength of will they developed to overcome their trials as a way to scorn people who didn’t manage to find the same strength. In other words, Belarus feels justified to hold in contempt ‘weaker’ people because by enduring what she did, she proved it’s possible to do so. Those who don’t manage just don’t try hard enough, in her opinion. They don’t deserve compassion. Just like her, they must bear their suffering alone. (This is why she’s always so blunt, too. She doesn’t see the point in softening the blow. If people can’t take the truth, they’re weaklings. They need to learn to do so.)

At the same time, Belarus isn’t a loner – from her interactions with Russia and briefly America, it almost looks like she needs to attach herself to somebody. And once she has found this person, her attachment and devotion reach unhealthy levels. Once again, this may be a result of her trauma. Maybe, having witnessed so much suffering makes her fear the same could happen to those few she cares about and she goes overboard trying to protect them. Or maybe, she feels lost without somebody ‘leading’ her. She spends so much energy building a wall around herself (to protect herself) that she has never had the time to figure out who she wants to be. She ends up dedicating herself fully to somebody because without that, she’d be nothing. She needs external validation and inputs to thrive. It may also be something else, or a mixture of things. As I said, Belarus is a character I have an extremely hard time pinning down.

The Three Siblings

Regarding the interactions of those three siblings as family, instead, I have to say that their familial unit looks almost healthier than the single individuals as it’s somehow adjusted around their flaws.

The one who brings everybody together is Ukraine. As I have already said, her big heart and maternal tendencies mean that she cares immensely for her siblings. She’s able to excuse their flaws because she sees where they come from and at the same time, she genuinely loves them. She wants the best for them; to see them thrive and at the same time, to be part of their lives. She’s the one who constantly checks on everybody and keeps suggesting they hang out together. She’s extremely protective if somebody hurts them, too.

Russia loves Ukraine deeply, of course. How could he not, when she offers him exactly what he yearns the most, affection and warmth? But it isn’t only this. I think Ukraine belongs to those few people Russia genuinely cares about. He mostly lets her do her own thing because he knows she’s capable enough, but he’s also very protective of her. Hurt Ukraine, and you’re dead. No questions asked.

Belarus cares for Ukraine just as much. She also often criticizes her sister, though. Ukraine is one of those people Belarus would consider ‘too weak’ due to her soft-hearted nature. However, Belarus also knows Ukraine too well to dismiss the strength her sister hides behind her kind nature. Belarus begrudgingly respects Ukraine. Moreover, for how much she doesn’t like to admit it, even Belarus is touched by how much Ukraine cares for her and treasures it deeply. Belarus is also very protective of Ukraine and may even be willing to behave a bit better if her sister is present.

In regard to the relationship between Russia and Belarus, instead... Two people with such baggage aren’t a good starting point for a healthy relationship. If we look at canon, the one between them isn’t.

Now, I want to spend a few words on Belarus’s ‘obsession’ towards Russia. I think her attachment stems from both the familial bond they have and her admiration for Russia’s strength; with her bleak outlook, she wants to associate with strong people. And, as I’ve said before, completely devote herself to him. About the ‘marriage’ thing, though – personally, I don’t think there’s a romantic feeling involved. The way I see it, what nations call ‘marriage’ isn’t actually a wedding but a mere political union, a contract. One that grants a personification some rights over another one, basically. There’s nothing about it that is like a human wedding, it’s mutually understood that no kind of feelings (or romantic/sexual relationship between the two parts) is involved. This is why even blood-related siblings can ‘marry’. So, Belarus wants to ‘marry’ Russia because this would be the best way to serve and protect him – both by being always by his side and by ‘rescuing’ him from other unions that could not be as favourable for Russia. Of course, she goes about it completely the wrong way, but all Belarus wants is to protect Russia and to be acknowledged by him as his ally and useful subject.

We know from canon, however, that Russia doesn’t answer well to Belarus’s obsession. He’s creeped out and annoyed by her. Still, I don’t think he hates her. He’s almost like an older sibling who doesn’t have patience for the younger ones. But deep down, he still cares for Belarus because she’s his – his sister and his family. He probably doesn’t enjoy Belarus’s company as much as he enjoys Ukraine’s, but that’s because of the way she behaves. If Belarus were a bit less obsessive, Russia would tolerate her better. He also isn’t so overtly protective of Belarus as he is of Ukraine, but this is because Belarus is more than capable of defending herself (and unlike Ukraine, she doesn’t let anything slide). I think that if somebody ended up actually hurting Belarus, Russia would react just as bad.

...

All these are just my impressions, though. And they might not even be all canon-compliant as I may have missed something. I still hope they make sense! But if you want to explore the slavic siblings, I’d recommend you to have a look at @chessna2, she’s certainly more expert about them than I am!

[petracore101]

Cinder, Jaune, and Support Driven Responses to Fear

A few folks have hit on how both Cinder and Jaune are deeply afraid of failure. But the more I think about it, the more I’ve noticed how much deeper their similarities go. Specifically, the reasons for their fear, I think, come from very similar elements of their characters.

Jaune sees himself as the supportive leader, the protector of his team. He thinks his important to them is solely because he can enhance and support them. Being useful to them means they will see him, that he will matter. Even his semblance reflects this- he is able to essentially boost their souls, shielding them and enhancing their own abilities. That’s his whole identity, his whole sense of self is wrapped up in what he is to his the people around him.

Cinder, on the other hand, sees herself as the terrifyingly adept antagonist, the powerful and unbeatable enemy. She sees her role, her whole destiny, as the one who grows ever more powerful, ever stronger. That power makes people fear and respect her, makes them see her and forces them to acknowledge that she matters.

They are both afraid not only of failing, but of losing who they are. It’s more than failure to them, because their sense of identity is almost entirely dependent on their impact on others and how others perceive them. For Jaune, it is people’s love and attention that he is afraid to lose. For Cinder, it’s their fear and respect which she fears losing. But for both of them, it is the perception of others which protects them and makes them who they are. Jaune’s desire to protect and Cinder’s desire to be powerful both stem from a need to be seen in a way which they feel is safe. So while their goals may be different, their reasons for pursuing them are, essentially, the same. Where they differ significantly, though, is with what happens when they do fail. What happens when those fears are realized. Because their very identities are wrapped up in how people see them, a failure essentially means their sense of self is shattered.

Jaune fails quite a lot, but his first and most significant failure is with Pyrrha. Just as he is accepting his role as leader and growing used to the responsibility that entails, his new identity is tested. And then he fails- he fails to figure out what’s bothering her, fails to help her work through it, fails to protect her, and fails to save her from Cinder. His newfound purpose and identity is shattered, and he reacts... poorly. He defers entirely to Ruby’s leadership and throws himself repeatedly into danger he is not equipped to handle. But when he does this, his team is still there for him. They reach out, try to support and protect him. And he starts to find a way to function again.

When he fails again- throwing himself at Cinder and failing to stop her from stabbing Weiss, his friends are there again. They protect him and help him unlock his semblance. They trust and encourage him. Nora and Ren make it a point to seek him out and tell him how much he matters to them. Every time he breaks, his friends are there to support him and help him build a new, healthier version of himself. It’s even mirrored in his outfits- he gains a little more cohesion and a little more gold with each iteration, getting a little closer to his own, fully realized person.

But Cinder? The first time she fails is after killing Pyrrha, when Ruby brings her to her knees. She’s both physically and mentally shattered. After that failure, she’s surrounded by her team, but not one of them truly supports her. Emerald and Mercury are too subservient to do so (by her design), Watts and Tyrian are outright antagonistic towards her, and Hazel doesn’t seem to care much at all. The closest thing to a supporter she has is Salem, who tells her that she only matters so long as she is powerful. Cinder is told that she doesn’t matter to people, only her power does. This ‘recovery’ creates a far less healthy version of Cinder, quite literally represented by the Grimm arm leeching off her body. She becomes obsessed and unstable.

And the second time she fails? It’s even worse- this time she’s utterly alone. There’s no one to fear her, serve her, respect her. And so she centers her whole purpose in RWBY/JNR. If she can find them, kill them, take back the lamp... She can make them fear her. They give her a reason to exist. And that’s all she has, until Neo arrives. As soon as there’s an opportunity to have a partner, Cinder jumps on it, despite the fact that Neo is there to kill her. She needs the partnership that badly, she needs a relationship to build herself off of, and she immediately reverts to the attitude of early volumes, trying to recapture some sense of self. But she still has no true support, she never has. And so every time she rebuilds herself, she ends up a little less healthy and a little more damaged. And, again, it’s mirrored in what she chooses to wear. She grows darker and loses a little more orange with each new change, and the grim parts of her grow. Every time she breaks, she loses a little of herself to the darkness and rot.

All in all, I think their stories really exemplify one of the biggest messages of Volume 7. Fear can drive us to do a lot of things, but the support we receive when we’re most afraid is a huge part of how we react. When people are broken down to nothing, having support can mean the difference between becoming a hero and a becoming villain.

Jaune has support. He has people who love him and know him well, people in a position to step in and help when he falters. Just like Ruby, Weiss, Qrow, Robyn, and others who’ve hit their low points recently. They are all faced it’s their fears, their trauma, and come through strong because of the people around them.

Cinder does not. She has no one who truly loves her and is also in a position to actively help and support her. Just like our other main antagonist this volume. Both Cinder and Ironwood have no one close enough to actually support them, no one to step in and take up the slack when they falter. When they are forced to confront their fears, they are essentially alone. Some of this isolation is their own doing, but some is outside their control. The lack of real support, though, ends up amplifying their unhealthy tendencies and nearly erasing their healthier traits.

Ultimately, characters reflect the environments in which they exist and recover. For Jaune and Cinder, it’s a particularly strong reflection, because their identities are so inherently tied to their relationships to others. The people in their lives don’t just influence their identities, they practically define them. So we get two remarkably similar characters who present as complete opposites. They’re perfect reflections, people of the same nature made into opposites by wildly different nurture. They are better equipped than anyone to really understand the other, but their lives have made them into enemies. And honestly? That’s pretty fascinating.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Mike and Eleven are an unhealthy couple, and other ST relationship notes

Relationships have been shown to be a big part of Stranger Things from the beginning. In Season 1, we’re treated to The Party’s unique dynamic, Nancy’s rocky romance with Steve, Joyce’s interactions with her ex-husband, and Johnathan and Will’s brotherly bonding. We are also introduced to Eleven, who more or less instantly bonds with Mike. These relationships allow us to get to know the characters in a more intimate way, and help drive the narrative. In Season 2, we get deeper into these relationships and also see new ones bloom. We witness the special bond that Mike and Will share, the abusive dynamic of the Hargrove household, Dustin and Lucas spar over Max while she adapts to being adopted by a group of nerds, Steve and Nancy’s relationship fails and Johnathan and Nancy’s begins, and even Karen get frustrated over her boring rut of a marriage. We also see Mike, at least early on in the season, desperately reach out to Eleven, and it’s indicated he’s been doing this for just shy of a year (353 days I believe).  In Season 3, a heavy-handed theme is “we don’t understand each other.” This is displayed prominently by multiple relationships. It’s most obvious with Johnathan and Nancy, where I believe it was directly stated. Nancy feels he doesn’t believe in her and her journalistic hunches, while he feels she isn’t considering how badly he needs that internship since he lacks her familial resources. Joyce and Hopper’s relationship goes on a roller coaster stemming from Hopper seeing Joyce as playing around with him as he tries his best to open his heart again, but Joyce still has grief over Bob and understandable paranoia about the lab holding her back. Max and Lucas seem ok, showing some playful banter, but we’re also told they’ve broken up five times. Seeing as how they’ve only been together for about 7-8 months or so. That’s a sign of a lack of understanding, but sadly we don’t get much more out of Lucas this season. Karen is tempted by Billy to bring some excitement into her life, though Ted is shown to be rather content with his boring family life. We’re also treated to the heartwarming friendship of Steve and Robin, which is teased as a romance through yet another misunderstanding. This brings me to the crux of this post (finally), and that is Mike, and his horrible (or horribly written) relationships in Season 3. I can totally buy his attachment to Eleven. She helps him find Will in Season 1, and is traumatized by her disappearance (and apparent death) during the final battle with the Demogorgon. It’s completely understandable that he’d be affected by that, possibly feeling guilty and responsible, and desperate for her safe return. It’s totally realistic for a 12-year-old to develop a crush on a girl in a short amount of time such as the week he knew her. It’s unbelievably realistic for him to be immensely happy and relieved when she comes back in Season 2, safe and sound. It’s totally in-character for him to be a nervous wreck when she goes to close the gate. At no point, however, does this have the appearance of a romantic relationship, at least not a true and healthy one.

In Season 3, however, he is completely obsessed with her. It’s revealed by Lucas that he’s been neglecting his friends. He’s been seeing her every day, at least since summer started, and there are implications that Eleven primarily only sees Mike (Max is shocked to see her, we see no interactions between El and the others, she’s still not allowed to be out in public, etc.). This girl has had no opportunity for social or emotional growth in the roughly year and a half since she’s been out of the lab. Her question to Max (”How do I know if I like something?” or something along those lines) should be jarring. She’s never considered anything for herself. Pre-dumping, she and Mike are shown basically just making out. There’s no conversation, no getting to know each other, no simply enjoying each other’s company. The only time we see them with the others, Mike and El very quickly leave, which the others know means they want to make out. El is supposed to be friends with them too, but she seems equally obsessed with this relationship. It’s been months since the Snow Ball, they should be out of the honeymoon phase even if Mike’s opportunities to see her during the school year were limited.  So, unpopular opinion, Mike and El share an unhealthy relationship. He’s more annoyed than upset when she dumps him, while El has a blast hanging out with Max. It’s nice to see her grow with this, but she’s quite honestly depicted as being better off without Mike as a boyfriend. I’m not saying they couldn’t grow into a better couple, but we see nothing like that in this season. They make up in the hospital, and Mike awkwardly tries to talk about feelings in the grocery store, but they just aren’t hearing each other. They don’t understand each other. They still don’t at the end, to be honest. While many people seem to think they rekindle their relationship before the Byers’ move, Mike seems legit confused. He stands there, stock still, as El kisses him. He doesn’t kiss back, he doesn’t close his eyes, he doesn’t put his arms around her, he doesn’t return her “I love you”, and, as she walks off, he doesn’t get a goofy grin, a sad smile, or a hopeful look on his face. He stands there, confused, as if that kiss was unexpected and he doesn’t know how to feel about it. That wasn’t a boy who had been going out with this girl for the past three months post-Starcourt. If they were meant to be seen as a happy couple, tragically being torn apart, then the writers did a terrible job of it. It’s almost too obvious that we’re supposed to compare this to Mike’s strained relationship with Will, though at the same time it’s like we’re meant to forget all of that. There’s curiously no acknowledgement to any of the bonding they shared in Season 2, even through flashbacks. Will is portrayed as being upset at the slightest sign of Mike and El’s romance. He doesn’t show frustration with Max or Lucas, and he’s amused at the prospect of helping Dustin contact his camp girlfriend. If this wasn’t intentional, then it’s either poor acting or poor writing. Both Mike and Will become single-minded, Mike towards El, and Will towards D&D. There’s many possible explanations (besides the aforementioned bad writing) that could explain Will’s change of character, but that’s a post for another time, if people are interested. Will reaches his breaking point in a conversation that reads more like a breakup than anything else. Again, though, it’s clear they don’t understand each other. This is where the “Is Will gay?” speculation hits a crescendo, as he angrily states it’s not his fault Will doesn’t like girls. Will is...devastated, shocked, terrified? It’s hard to nail down. Mike is immediately remorseful, though his apology is severely lacking. Will’s parting words of “I guess I did. I really did.” again seem more like a breakup. I’d like to go on more, but besides Mike tracking Will down in the rain (not unsignificant), we see little between them until the goodbyes. Their scene is shorter than Mike and El’s, but significant in that it’s the only goodbye Will is shown having (apart from all the hugging). They speak in code again, with Mike worried Will may replace him, and Will reassuring Mike that could never happen. It’s worth mentioning that the smile Mike shows in this scene is the most genuine we see all season from him.  I’m not sure what to think about it all. Mike and Will’s relationship is somehow portrayed as stronger and deeper that Mike and El’s, but simultaneously less significant. It makes more sense for Mike to be closer to Will than El, and it’s curious that he and El are never shown trying to get to know each other. My ultimate conclusion, drawing on personal experience and someone with degrees in psychology and counseling, is that Mike and El are bad for each other, at least based on how they’ve been depicted thus far. They’re shown to be better outside of their relationship.  Ultimately, Mike lost both of these relationships at the end. While we know the three of them will meet again, they simply have the hope of visits and calls. Mike is left visibly upset as the Byers family drives off, but it’s ambiguous as to whether Will or El leaving upsets him more. I don’t think he knows the answer to that either. As he enters his mother’s embrace, he appears in a state of shock. This scene parallels him being comforted in season 1 when Will’s fake body was pulled from the water, even going so far as to include the same song. It’s possible he’s coming to a realization involving Will, which could explain the shock. I think the simplest explanation, though, is that we’re supposed to be as confused as Mike as to what all this means. Mike starting to consider that Will is more than just his best friend would be a breath of fresh air for a story like this, but I doubt it.  If you made it this far, let me know if you’d like more posts from me. I have thoughts on the effects of trauma on the characters, theories for season 4, and general opinions about seasons 1-3.

[glolovescats]

A story of me and my history. My experiences.

CW - trauma, sexual assault, mental health struggles (ADHD, BPD, OCPD, Depression, PTSD, Autism??), self harm, addiction, psychological abuse

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I’m 27 years old, non binary, AFAB. I am the older middle child of 4, all of my siblings are brothers.

I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD, BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder) and most recently PTSD.

My first psych evaluation was when I was 5 years old, and I have recently found the notes from that evaluation and they point to early onset BPD traits as well as ADHD.  Though it is stated repeatedly throughout the notes that they could not complete a full assessment because I refused to participate in any activity or or engage with anything that I deemed “too difficult” instead spending more time on the things that I was comfortable with such as painting.

My favourite lines from the assessment are as follows:

“If she is not motivated by an activity, she trends to wander off physically and mentally.  However if interested, she can concentrate for long periods of time.”

 “*Deadname* was a great talker and loved to tell stories on and off topic. She had a keen sense of her own capabilities and was often self-critical of her work stating ‘it does not look good.’ It was very difficult to change her mind and she appeared to want to be in control of the situation.”

I remember after this assessment being medicated for ADHD for a few months. My parents called them my “hyper pills” because if I was hyper it meant I probably hadn’t taken them..... yikes.

After those few months, for whatever reasons my parents took me off the medication.

I have had a very intense oral fixation since a very young age, biting my nails for as long as I remember and being a thumb-sucker, not just during sleep but during awake hours as well, until I was 9 years old.

When I was 11 I began self harming, as a way to release my emotional energy and tensions and soothe myself.

When I was 13 I told my mom about my self harming, at which point she sent me to a psychiatrist again. I was again diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication, which I remained on until my second year of college when I decided I didn’t want to be medicated anymore.  As a teen, I continued to self harm but hid it from my mom as she was very critical and cruel in her reactions to it.  Anytime I had emotional outbursts (which was, fairly often) I would be asked “have you taken your meds today!!?” as if that would solve everything going on.  I spent many hours curled up in a ball in my closet crying, sobbing, feeling like I was going to explode, then hurting myself to calm down.

When I left home for college, I developed anorexia. I stopped cutting myself, but began hitting myself repeatedly until bruises formed, then maintaining those bruises over long periods of time as a new form of self harm.  It was also in this time that my love of cannabis started to really form (I had enjoyed it as well as a teen, but in limited capacities as I lived with parents who I had to hide it from, and they were quite controlling over my social life and free time)

After 2 years of college, my first queer partner, whom I still feel very fondly for and maintain a very strong friendship with, noticed not only my eating disorder but also my self harm habit, and convinced me to seek help.  A few months later I went to my doctor and was diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety, and put back on medications.  I was 19 then, I am 27 now and still on that same medication, though the dose has varied throughout the years depending on my emotional state.

I went through some other relationships, some healthy, some less so.

I became more and more in love with cannabis. SPending what little money I had on it. “Borrowing” some from friends and lovers. Smoking when I woke up, in the afternoon, and before bed, sometimes throughout all hours of the day.

When I was 23 I fell in love with a man named Derek. It was the first cis man I had ever truly fallen in love with, and that love became... toxic. Obsessive. At the time I would have called it passionate but I know now that it was very unhealthy.  I put everything in my life aside for him. I risked pregnancy not because I wanted a child (I never have) but because I wanted to make sure he would never leave me.  This is also when my love of cannabis solidified into an addiction.  I was using it to cope with the pain of being so desperately in love with someone who, wasn’t very good at catering to my needs, to put it lightly. He was a dealer at the time, this was before it became legalized in Canada so dealers were still very much needed.  So I always had access to it, and for free or cheap.  We would wake up in the middle of the night and go smoke a couple bowls before heading back into bed. We smoked all day every day, it was what our relationship revolved around.  We would also take large amounts of MDMA on the weekends and go out dancing from midnight to 8 or 9am at the after hours clubs, then go home and smoke to ease the come down. This gave me a love for MDMA which is a terrible thing for someone with low serotonin to begin with.

Nearly two years into our relationship, my friends started to notice that I wasn’t being treated well, that I was always hurting, always longing for more from him, and always pushing aside my needs to accommodate him.  They begged me to leave him.  I was having breakdowns, even with my antidepressants. I was self harming again. I was having rage blackouts. I was hurting.  A few months later, he broke up with me.  I begged him not to. I promised I could be right for him. We just had to try. He didn’t want to try.

Now, 4 years later, I’m so glad he didn’t. Yes, my heart was shattered in that moment, yes it sent me on a spiral, but I see now how toxic the relationship was and he is not anything like the person I would want to be with for life.

At that time I was living in towns on the outskirts of Toronto, but his dumping me gave me the push I needed to move to into the city, which I did, y months later. March 15th 2017.  Moving to Toronto meant more freedom, more access to all the things that made me happy - a queer community, a polyam community *I discovered Polyamoury about 2 months after our breakup and realized how much I needed it*, more job opportunities, more diversity and acceptance.  It also meant higher rent, higher weed prices as I was now buying from dispensaries, higher transit costs and generally higher cost of living.  Some of my new friends were sex workers and it... appeared enticing for me.  however I didn’t feel close enough with these friends yet to ask details about safety, vetting, standards, etc.

Well, I decided to get into sex work for myself, without really knowing what i was getting into.  I’m not going to get into much detail here because my PTSD stems directly from these experiences and I don’t want to trigger myself right now.  But I spent 2 years working as a Sugar Baby and Full Service Sex Worker.  I did not have standards. I was driven by my need to maintain my weed habit - which was at least 2 grams/day - so on average about $600/month or more.  I didn’t take safety into mind more than letting my roommate know the given name and phone number of the person I was meeting up with.  This led to... a lot of fucked up situations. A lot of pain and trauma. I was constantly high, which allowed my to dissociate while these things were happening to me and suppress the memories quite quickly. By this time in my addiction, I was never NOT stoned.  On top of that I would occasionally take MDMA before or during a date to maintain a peppy mood and appearance.  On March 1st 2019, after realising that I wasn’t even making money off of all of it, I was driven far into debt by trying to maintain appearances and a lifestyle that i just couldn’t afford, and a realization that I was dissociating whenever I was being intimate with a client OR a friend or loved one... I decided to leave the industry. It’s been over a year now.

In the first year of my living in Toronto I saw a psychiatrist about my mental instability, my rage blackouts, my obsessiveness. I was diagnosed with BPD and put on a mood stabilizer, which I admit has helped a lot in terms of my heightened emotions and rage problems.

During those first 2 years in Toronto, I was also in a queer, polyam relationship with a person named Laurel.  At first i was drawn to their softness, their creativity, their ability to be vulnerable with me and others.  Eventually, that vulnerability became co dependance. They used me as a crutch, they took all of my emotional energy for themselves and never gave any in return.  While I was being traumatized, I was also supporting them through their mental health struggles and ignoring my own. They had a bad habit of disregarding and stomping all over my boundaries. even after we would discuss them and i would make compromises. I was being abused by this inherently toxic person (I say that, having many friends who have witnessed and felt the toxicity from this person as well). By April 2019 I was drained, I was traumatized, I was falling into a pit and being pushed down even further by the person who claimed to love me.  When I tried to set boundaries I was met with threats of suicide, manipulating me into staying with them longer.  But eventually I started to see through it and I just couldn’t anymore. I ended it. Which was met with a lot of cruelty and more manipulation to the point where eventually I had to just block them from every form of contact and move on.

Throughout the year after that, my weed habit maintained, and got even more intense, going up to closer to 3 grams/day and including concentrates and edibles as well.  I was always high. Always numb. I couldn’t remember anything. I couldn’t focus during conversations even if I was really interested in what we were talking about. I couldn’t stay awake, I would pass out while hanging out with friends, while on public transit, in movie theatres.. anywhere. I could hardly get out of bed in the mornings and when I did I would go straight for the bong.

I was constantly fatigued and I felt numb. I didn’t want to believe my precious cannabis could be doing this to me though, so I begged my doctor to refer me to a psych to discuss changing medications, assuming it was my meds giving me these side effects.  That psychiatrist diagnosed me with OCPD, saying that he believes this is what has always caused the depression and anxiety, and he also diagnosed me with CUD - Cannabis Use Disorder - essentially a fancy way of saying I’m an addict and my drug of choice is cannabis.  He told me that he would not touch my meds until I either drastically cut back my usage or stopped altogether.

I was devastated, I hated the idea of having to not smoke weed anymore. And I knew I would HAVE to stop altogether because my many many many attempts in the past to cut back were never successful. I knew then that I was an addict, just like my alcoholic father, my alcoholic and cocaine addict younger brother. I knew I had the gene too.

I discovered MA - Marijuana Anonymous, which is like AA  or NA but for stoners.  My dad had been sober for 11 years with the help of rehab and AA so I figured I would give it a shot.  I smoked my last bowl on February 29th, I went to my first meeting on March 1st.  I haven’t smoked or consumed any cannabis products since. It’s over 4 months now. I also made the conscious decision to be sober from alcohol as in the past my attempts at smoking less weed led to drinking more alcohol.  I know I need to fight my addiction as an entire entity, not just as one substance.

In the past 4 months I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs.  Not only with sobriety, but with the pandemic hitting Canada mid march, forcing me out of work and stuck at home, it’s had both positive and negative effects.  My first month of sobriety I was fairly manic, I wasn’t as hazy and groggy and fatigued, I had also just started taking Vyvanse - a stimulant - for my ADHD. So I was very motivated and I was cleaning and creating and doing all these things I could with my free time.  Then about a month and a half into it I started to get physically depressed - I say it that way because my mind felt ok. IO wasn’t having catastrophic thinking or suicidal ideation or desires to self harm - but I was feeling very avoidant and sleeping and napping so much more. Two months in, my memories that I had been suppressing with the constant high started to come through to my conscious. Sometimes they were childhood or teen memories, which I could mostly cope with.  But then came the memories from the sex work. The traumatic experiences. The shame that surrounds them.  I was having invasive thoughts. I would lay my head down to sleep and suddenly be in flashbacks.  I had known for a long time (about a year, since leaving the industry) that I was triggered into panic attacks by intimacy and touch, but I didn’t know exactly what was causing those panic attacks. I just knew that touch made me feel so unsafe.  Well, now I knew why. One night I called my sponsor, crying, stuck in a loop of flashbacks and memories and feeling like I couldn’t breathe.  And then the words just flowed out of me, I said “I think maybe I have PTSD”.  Luckily for me, I already had a follow up appointment with my psychiatrist scheduled for the next week. I told him everything that was happening, that I was remembering things but then getting stuck in flashbacks and shame and cycling thoughts. He then diagnosed me with PTSD. He suggested we go back up to a slightly higher dose of my antidepressant while maintaining my other medications (I’m still on the mood stabilizer and the stimulant) and urged me to find ongoing therapy. My sponsor had sent me a link to a group of psychotherapists who work on a low budget sliding scale, so I referred myself to them and within 48 hours had a free 50 minute consultation scheduled.

Where am I now?

Struggling with the invasive thoughts which make me feel depressed, but knowing where they stem from is helpful.  Awaiting my therapy consultation which is in a couple of days, hoping it’s a good match and that we can start speaking weekly or every other week depending on cost.

For a while now I’ve been trying to decipher whether I really do have ADHD< BPD and OCPD all blended together, or if I’m really autistic, because so many of my traits and symptoms overlap with autism.  I’m doing my research now on traits of autism and seeing where I identify.  I doubt I would ever get a diagnosis, as doctors would rather believe we have all these other disorders rather than autism (stigma), but to know where I feel I fit would be helpful.  I have some friends on the spectrum and I’ve reached out to them to discuss as well.  My youngest bother is autistic but he really fits the “autistic teen boy” stereotypes which I do not.  And I understand that autism can present very differently in different genders and different people.  Personally, I believe I may be Autistic and have PTSD. But I will continue to pursue ongoing therapy, as well as DBT therapy, to address my behaviours and see where I can learn to cope better.

I am probably the most single polyam person you could meet. I have no intention of dating, though I do have a couple crushes I intend to grow strong friendships with, until I have learned to cope with the PTSD and intimacy triggers. In a way it’s as if I am currently feeling asexual, because even the thought of kissing someone I like triggers me into a panic.  But I don’t believe that I will feel this way forever so I don’t use asexual as an identifier or label for myself.  I am not working, though still technically employed, my job is in the travel industry and we don’t expect to have enough meaningful work to return to until at least the fall.  When i do return to work I’ll be doing so remotely, as will most of the employees of our company. So I have less transit expenses, less time constraints, and more freedom to focus on myself and my personal development.  I’ve made this tumblr to explore and learn more about autism in adults. As well as to have something to do and distract myself with when i start to enter a depressive cycle.  SO this blog will be a mix of mental health and neuro-divergent info posts, along with cute animals, selfies, travel photos, and maybe a little shit posting - as a treat.

Welcome, and thank you for reading my story.  If you have any questions or relate to any of it and want to chat, my inbox is open.

[drewinator23]

FE3H MBTI [Dimitri — ISFJ]

lol so. it looks like a lot of people are subscribing to the idea that dimitri is an ENFJ, in contrast to edelgard, who is supposedly an ENTJ. i believe that misses the point of these characters — and their dynamic — almost entirely, especially in dimitri’s case. while i will say i think edelgard is an INTJ, at least that isn’t too far off from ENTJ. the cognitive difference between ISFJ and ENFJ though...oh boy, where do i start.

the whole dimitri/edelgard conflict isn’t so much a clash between Fe and Te as it is a clash between Si and Ni — with dimitri, of course, representing the former. Fe vs Te does come into play a little (ISFJ’s auxiliary Fe vs INTJ’s auxiliary Te), but i honestly think the main focus of their clash is the past vs future dynamic typical of Si/Ni conflict.

ISFP seems to be a popular choice for dimitri too, but tbh i think a lot of people are mistaking his Si for Fi. i just want to say, right now, that this man...does not have Fi. lol. not in his main functions anyway (yes i will be getting into shadow functions, and cognitive loops, and all that good stuff, so if that’s not your cup of tea then here’s your warning!) ...but yeah let’s get into it.

Dominant Si 

“I must never forget that day. I must never allow their deaths to be forgotten.”

dimitri has a very strong connection to the past. and this doesn’t just apply to his past, but to the concept of the past in general. in stark contrast to edelgard, dimitri vehemently believes in “preserving what deserves to be preserved,” which is an important factor in why his methods are far less radical than hers. he believes it’s possible to improve the system currently in place without tearing it from the ground up the way edelgard does. he places a lot more focus on honoring the fallen, on reminiscing about days gone by, and on respecting tradition in general. and this isn’t to say he’s a dense fuck. dimitri is very much capable of criticizing tradition where it’s due, and we see him do this on multiple occasions. it’s just that he has a lot more appreciation for the positive aspects of tradition/“the past” which edelgard seems to ignore completely. where edelgard wishes her “worthless dreams of the past” would go away, dimitri legit admits to relying on his headaches/nightmares of the past as reminders because he is genuinely afraid to forget the faces of those he “let die,” along with those he killed. he believes forgetting their faces would be an insult to their memory. he talks about his history with edelgard far more than she talks about her history with him. he becomes furious when edelgard’s forces attack the holy tomb and “desecrate the dead.” i think you guys get where i’m going with this. while it’s true that a substantial amount of dimitri’s connection to the past is unhealthy, that’s largely due to the trauma he suffers, along with the cognitive imbalance stemming from his Si-Ti loop. obsessing over the past the way dimitri does is far more indicative of an unhealthy Si user than it is of shadow Si, which is more likely to just abandon the past altogether...or uh, “trample the past underfoot” (looking at you, hegemon edelgard). 

“I owe you, just as I owe the spirits of those I let die.”

second point — duty. (i’m guessing this is the point a lot of people confuse for Fi. dimtiri’s pretty preachy, yeah, but not all talk about justice is inherently rooted in Fi. more on that later though.) this guy literally constructs his entire life around the idea of fulfilling his duty, be it his duty to his father, his duty to dedue’s people, his duty to his kingdom, etc. he constantly talks about his need to fulfill these duties, and pretty much all the effort he puts into anything is driven by this. even his earlier, more light-hearted supports tend to carry a running theme of him making promises (which he takes almost comedically seriously), encouraging his classmates to be responsible, creating debts to be repaid, and so on. the only reason he even goes to the academy in the first place is, by his own admission, to fulfill what he perceives as his duty as the Sole Survivor of the Tragedy of Duscur™. obsessive revenge is a fucked up conception of duty, sure, but it transforms into something healthier by the end of the story while remaining very distinctly Si. his duty to ghosts becomes his duty to the living — to the people in his kingdom who need him now. essentially, he develops a more constructive attitude toward duty that helps both him and the people he constantly feels he “owes.” my boi snaps out of his Si-Ti loop and becomes a bro again once dat aux Fe and inf Ne come back to balance shit out, y’know what i’m saying? anyway speaking of aux Fe,

Auxiliary Fe

“This victory is the result of everyone’s hard work. Thank you, my friends.”

academy phase dimitri (and i guess uh...post-post-timeskip dimitri) is just about the nicest guy ever. he can be stiff and awkward to the point of being comically serious at times, sure (thanks dominant Si), but he’s generally very polite and agreeable. he’s conscious of the atmosphere in his conversations and always makes an effort to keep things comfortable for everyone involved. tbh he could make do with less of the whole constantly-falling-over-himself-apologizing thing, and it would be kinda cool if “sorry” didn’t make up over 90% of his dialogue, but i digress. regret is dimitri’s middle name so it kinda makes sense for it to permeate even his most mundane interactions. ANYWAY my point is — dimitri’s always trying to make sure everyone gets along and he generally prioritizes harmony over being fully honest about his own feelings, which strikes me as a lot more Fe than Fi. a simple but hopefully effective example of this is his support with flayn where he eats her awful fucking food and tells her it’s delicious even though he can’t taste it. he later admits to her that he was only saying what he thought she’d want to hear, which is like...peak Fe my dudes. a good chunk of his support and even main story dialogue involves him trying to smooth things over, prevent conflict, let people know they did a good job, and so on. and this isn’t just with respect to the other blue lions, but to the other house leaders as well. a lot of the praise he dishes out commends hard work and effort (thanks dominant Si), but his focus is also largely on teamwork and cooperation. 

“I saved someone—saved you. That and that alone has always been my crutch.”  

now on to the darker side of...not-so-healthy Fe users. dimitri openly admits to dedue that saving him gave him a reason to live, that it makes him think it was worthwhile that someone “like [him]” survived. and this savior complex doesn’t just apply to his relationship with dedue, but to his behavior and decisions in general. it’s exacerbated by the sense of genuine responsibility and duty he attaches to everything (thanks dominant Si), and it sparks up in many different ways. he admits that he feels like it’s his responsibility to help the orphans at the monastery, since he lost his family like they did. he tells byleth he wants to become like rodrigue, whom he describes as “someone who can reach out and save a lost soul.” he apologizes to byleth for not being able to save jeralt (?? BRUH.) he begs byleth to tell him how he can “save” the ghosts of his loved ones, even though they’re...you know. dead. i think this prob comes from his endless regret that he couldn’t actually stop anyone from dying in the tragedy, so he’s just obsessed with saving everyone he can now. in any case, dimitri feels the pain of loss in war very, very acutely, which is why he freaks the fuck out in remire. he later admits the flames in remire reminded him of the flames in duscur, which flung him into the same rage he associates with what happened in duscur, even though he had no particular connection to the villagers in remire. he absorbs the suffering of people around him like a sponge and surprise surprise it breaks his mind. eventually his Fe gets overloaded af and shuts down (hello Si-Ti loop), but even unhinged dimitri shows an occasional connection to others’ feelings — endearingly so when he pats a random orphan’s head, and eerily so when he sympathizes with fleche’s bloodlust and allows her to join the party because of it.

Tertiary Ti

“He’s dead. There goes our chance to gain more information.”

dimitri’s introverted realm is one of Si and Ti. he wants to reconcile his understanding of what happened in the past with a logical, substantial explanation, and he works tirelessly to find this explanation. this becomes increasingly apparent when he actually spends time alone — when he isn’t in the company of others, dimitri is far more research-oriented than he is overtly sentimental. he is interested in learning the facts of his circumstances, and he spends hours in the library looking for answers, trying to find out for himself what really happened. he is skeptical of the generally accepted “truth” that duscur itself is to blame, and instead believes that the blame foisted on it is meant to cover up something far more underhanded. of course, he is right about this, and he conducts as much research as he can to get to the bottom of the event. he spends hours in the library, late into the night. he reads about his uncle, lord arundel, and immediately suspects his involvement because the church’s records of his donations abruptly stop right before the tragedy. dimitri questions the man himself about this during their brief encounter pre-timeskip, though it (predictably) doesn’t really lead anywhere. he tries this again post-timeskip, but arundel dies before dimitri can pry too much out of him, which the latter bitterly laments. 

“That is merely the logic of the living. It’s meaningless.”

much like dimitri’s Si, his Ti becomes warped once he enters his Si-Ti loop — feeding into a harsh, twisted, self-deprecating sort of logic that only reinforces itself and ignores other viewpoints (thanks to Fe and Ne shutting down). he becomes uncharacteristically blunt and critical, and the colder, more cynical view of the world we see glimpses of pre-timeskip becomes far more pronounced. in his mind, it doesn’t make sense for the living to move on in hopes of appeasing the dead. turning a blind eye to the dead is blasphemous, and anyone who believes that the dead would want the living to do so is merely adopting “the logic of the living” — a delusion to make themselves feel better. this belief likely helps him rationalize his own desire for revenge, and inability to let go of his past, and so the Si-Ti loop reinforces itself. to reiterate though, dimitri’s Ti is incredibly helpful and constructive when he isn’t loopy (ahahah. get it.) but anyway yeah, in short, his analytical process is typically far more introverted than the sensitive, emotion-focused approach he maintains externally. also, his attention to detail and refusal to accept things at face value are more subtle, covert elements of his personality, but they are definitely there. it’s not as pronounced as claude’s auxiliary Ti, sure, but tertiary Ti ain’t a force to be reckoned with either.

Inferior Ne

“Lineage, race, faith, ideologies... If we could just accept each other and make mutual concessions, one step at a time... Perhaps... Who knows if that’s even possible.”

again, this is one of claude’s functions but more baby. take upside down man’s dominant Ne and make it a bit smoller, more scared, and quicker to shut down. inferior Ne is brilliant, but unfortunately the fourth function tends to be one of insecurity. dimitri aspires to be open-minded and accepting (there’s a reason the inferior function is sometimes called the aspirational function), but it’s something he admittedly struggles with at times. he believes in compromise and understanding, and not just in an Fe way — dimitri advocates for reaching out to other perspectives in war, in politics, and in various other contexts throughout the story. it isn’t the first thing on his mind, but it’s an ideal he genuinely admires. and later in the game, once he snaps out of his loop (which is inherently tunnel-visioned due to its introverted nature), he opens up to the idea again and seeks to understand edelgard’s point of view. he asks to speak with her, to get a better idea of where she’s coming from, to negotiate and hopefully reach a mutual understanding. this echoes his dialogue in chapter 3, where he laments the incident with lord lonato and expresses his belief that they shouldn’t have cut him down, but talked to him instead. dimitri’s Si-Ti loop effectively shuts this desire down, for a very long time, but it finally wakes up again once byleth reminds him “there must be another way.”

“I wonder which is best, Professor... To cut away that which is unacceptable, or to find a way to accept it anyway.”

again, as long as byleth is there to steer him back on track, we all know the answer dimitri gets to this in the end. there is always an air of uncertainty about it all — and he definitely needs someone to help kick that inferior into “aspirational mode” — but he is ultimately capable of it. it begins as more of a question than anything, but with guidance it becomes an ideal he can properly believe in and seek for himself. it’s what allows him to finally reach for edelgard’s hand in the end. once he accepts the parts of himself he previously couldn’t, he finds himself able to accept edelgard as well — to extend that same mercy to her. once he’s out of his loop, he doesn’t just regain awareness of his loved ones’ needs with Fe, but becomes invested in understanding their perspectives and motivations again with Ne. he listens to people again, lets them help him, asks them questions, and shows genuine curiosity in their answers. claude would be proud eh?

Shadow Functions

okay here we go. i’m going to make this part shorter since it’s the main functions that matter most, and i know not everyone subscribes to the idea of shadow functions. but anyway here’s the dirt.

Opposing Se

“It’s not that I have grown weary...more that I find it difficult to be around everyone at the moment.”

this man literally cannot taste food. do i even need to elaborate? okay for real though, dimitri often finds it hard to remain present. he’s often caught up in his duties with Si, or worrying about the atmosphere with Fe, or stuck in his research with Ti, and so on. he is very much capable of making pleasant conversation, but actually feeling present is very difficult for him, and he even goes so far as to describe joy as “fleeting.” he struggles to enjoy festivities, claiming they “don’t suit [him],” and prefers instead to chat with byleth about his childhood. he can’t truly enjoy the meals he eats with others, but he remarks about the dishes he “used to love as a child.” trauma aside, dimitri finds genuine comfort in reminiscing about the past, and he often brings it up in his conversations with others. this is a classic dynamic between dominant Si and the opposing Se that comes along with it.

Critic Fi

“Whatever my feelings, it is all the act of a monster.”

dimitri’s personal feelings are...very, very low on his priority list. and despite all his preaching, he ultimately believes that whatever his personal moral compass may be, it doesn’t justify his actions. and he extends this belief to everyone else as well. simply put, dimitri doesn’t think any set of ideals or morals can justify the actions committed in war. as Aleczandxr words it, “the only reality of war is tragedy for him. there is no such thing as a ‘glorious’ or ‘romantic’ death, and sacrifice is blasphemy.” this is evident in his disgust at people trying to glorify glenn’s death (which dimitri ironically shares with felix — who of course has demon Fi — but that’s a topic for another time.) no subjective concept of morality could possibly justify murder, in any context, and this belief is a burden dimitri admits he believes he will carry forever. dimitri’s introverted realm is a reconciliation between Si and Ti, not Si and Fi. although he believes this should apply to everyone in theory, he often struggles to voice it outright, leading to the hypocritical dynamic that often comes with auxiliary Fe and critic Fi. an example of this is when he tells ashe not to beat himself up for what happened with lord lonato, in an attempt to comfort him, but then proceeds to beat himself up for the exact same thing as soon as ashe leaves. furthermore, the advice he gives marianne in his support with her is to understand that she doesn’t have to “force [her]self to smile as [her] soul bleeds,” though that is exactly what he does for the majority of the academy phase. in any case, the fact that he chooses to give her this specific advice, of all things, is telling.

Trickster Te

“I do not want you to die a death like that. Not even for the sake of loyalty or duty.”

dimitri struggles with efficiency. his intense loathing of sacrifice, regardless of context, makes it very difficult for him to strategize as a commander the way that edelgard does. his rational side is, for the most part, internal; he uses it for his research, his theorizing, his personal endeavors to obtain more information and better understand his circumstances. but he struggles to apply that same level of cold, hard logic while commanding his troops, especially in battle. this comes up in his support with ingrid, who remarks that any good king innately understands some of his soldiers’ lives must be sacrificed for the greater good. she then proceeds to call dimitri’s ideals soft-hearted, which is as good an encapsulation as any of how his Te compares to edelgard’s. war and battlefields aside, dimitri struggles with being harsh in general, preferring to speak to others in softer, more personal terms rather than being blunt. he translates his Ti findings into “acceptable” Fe terms, except for when he enters a loop and said Fe shuts down. during these phases, dimitri is harsh in a manner far more characteristic of “unfiltered” Ti than it is of unrestrained Te, as he snaps at others to leave him alone more than he is inclined to order them around.

Demon Ni

“Do I have the right to live for myself?”

as soon as dimitri snaps out of his Si-Ti revenge craze, his first instinct is to ask who or what he should live for now. and even after byleth tells him to live for what he believes in, it’s very clear in dimitri’s subsequent supports that “what he believes in” is still fulfilling his duty to his kingdom. the difference is that he now has a healthier conception of said duty, and is finally open to accepting his loved ones’ support. that said, he has never been naturally inclined to follow his more personal desires, plainly admitting that he has rarely — if ever — given his own dreams any thought. furthermore, he struggles considerably with looking toward the future, and is unable to do so without byleth, who needs to physically stop him from looking back and guide him onward in the final cutscene. even at his healthiest, dimitri is a defender of the past. he criticizes edelgard by asking her if she would really force people to “throw their lives away for the future,” and warns her that regardless of how strongly she believes in her vision, the future she creates will be “built on a foundation of tears.” this is because he understands, better than most, just how critical the past can be in any individual’s life.

Conclusion

the internet needs to stop hating Si and just let characters be well-written “and Si” at the same time lol. especially in such obvious, practically textbook cases of high Si. one of the most common arguments against Si dimitri is that his devotion to the past is only caused by his trauma, and “isn’t the real him.” the fact of the matter is, dimitri’s Si manifests in so much more than just his duty to avenge the fallen. it plays a huge role in so many other elements of his personality, as do the other functions that come with being an ISFJ. i’m tired of these implications that Ni is some inherently higher, “healthier” form of being lying under literally any indication of Si, which automatically gets discarded as trauma or something lmao. c’mon guys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[redorblue]

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

Boy was I hyped for this book. I read The Secret History in September (twice) and had to keep myself from making a shrine to Donna Tartt, so when I finally got my hands on The Goldfinch (which is a Pulitzer Prize winner no less) I was very, very excited. Which, as I keep forgetting, is not a good way to start a new book. So... It’s not like this book was a waste of time, and who am I to criticize a Pulitzer book anyway, but to me it’s definitely not as good as The Secret History, and at times I found it very hard to keep going.

Let’s start with what I liked though. I like how Donna Tartt writes relationships. I read an interview with her the other day where she says that she’s less interested in writing romance than other kinds of relationships. So far I’ve read two of her three novels (and at least in those two it’s very obvious that she doesn’t find romance all that interesting) and I’m very grateful to come across an author who doesn’t treat romance as the end-all-be-all. Granted, her depiction of friendship and family, and really her books in general, are rather dark and I dare say pessimistic, but still, it’s refreshing and superbly done. The main friendship here is the one between the protagonist and narrator, Theo, and his childhood friend Boris whom he meets a few weeks after his mother’s death in a terrorist attack (not committed by Islamists. Thanks, Donna). They soon become the only fixed point in each other’s lives in a solitary world of neglectful and violent fathers and absent/dead mothers. Objectively speaking, neither one is a good influence on the other: Boris is an alcoholic at the tender age of 13 and introduces Theo to a whole lot of other disreputable substances, as well as petty crime, and Theo’s self-destructive behaviour only exacerbates Boris’ tendency toward recklessness. But despite all that they form a strong friendship (with some romantic subtext here and there) based on a deep understanding of the other’s character, and morals aside, it’s really beautiful to see how far they would go for the other. I’d still say that they’re bad for each other and that their relationship is destructive at its core, but not because it’s a bad friendship - rather because their respective personal issues inadvertently make the other’s worse and also have a negative impact on their environment. Actually I think that’s true for most of Donna Tartt’s characters: They’re not really bad people (by whatever standards), and their issues don’t make them bad people either; it’s more the specific combinations in stressful situations that produce bad outcomes for them and others.

Another important relationship in The Goldfinch is the one between Theo and several parental figures: his mother (dead, which leaves him deeply scarred), Mrs Barbour who takes him in for a while after his mother’s death, his father (a relationship that haunts Theo his entire life), and Hobie, his guardian. It’s a rather tired trope to kill the protagonist’s mother in order to induce personal trauma, but I think in this case it’s very well executed and although we only meet her for a few short pages, she feels like a real, layered person instead of some sacrificial lamb meant only to create manpain. Her death, and specifically the manner of her death (the terrorist attack, during which Theo is also injured) leaves a huge hole in his heart and causes a whole bunch of mental health issues, but the reason for that is that we know first hand what a great person, and great mother, she was, and that’s what makes Theo’s pain over her death so relatable. (spoilers) His father, on the other hand, remains rather one-dimensional although he gets a lot more screen time. The only thing I know about him now is that he’s an abusive, unreliable coward, and honestly that’s enough, the less said about him the better. What’s really interesting is not him as a character, but his relationship with Theo, specifically how Theo recognizes (or thinks he recognizes) his father in his every action and urge and how it contributes to his self-loathing and carelessness about his destructive impulses.

So Theo’s biological parents are abusive and/or deceased, which is why he turns to other parent-aged people, namely Mrs. Barbour and Hobie. Especially Theo’s relationship with Mrs. Barbour becomes a bit obsessive, to the point where he mainly agrees to marry his girlfriend (Mrs. Barbour’s daughter) in order to please Mrs. Barbour, but in general they have a positive influence on Theo’s life. Theo has severe mommy/daddy issues and is very insecure toward them since subconciously he always thinks they’ll kick him out, even when he’s financially independent and an adult himself, so he always does his very best to hide his inner torment from them. Of course this is not a good thing in general, but it forces Theo to keep up appearances, to keep it together at least superficially, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing that keeps his drug addiction from escalating so much that it impairs his ability to function. They don’t know enough about what’s going on inside him, maybe also turned a blind eye a bit too often in an effort to see what they hoped to see and respect his privacy, but at least he didn’t end up as another body in the gutter, dead from heroin overdose, which would very likely have happened without them.

Lastly, there’s the romantic relationships, if you can call them that. The one with Kitsey (the woman he almost marries) is not really romantic; if anything, Theo’s in love with the idea of being in love with her, and the sense of normalcy that comes with it. It’s quite obvious that he doesn’t really know her, and she doesn’t really know him, and they’re both not remotely interested in changing that since it would mean letting their facades of a normal life without emotional trauma drop, and they’re both not ready for that. Not with each other anyway. They get along well enough when they’re alone although they don’t seem to share any interests, but they’re definitely not marrying for love but rather for convenience.

Theo’s relationship with Pippa, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. I dare say it’s not so much love but obsession that binds him to her, stemming from an emotional connection because of shared trauma (she was a survivor of the same terrorist attack that killed Theo’s mother and left him injured). Theo knows a lot about Pippa, they can talk to each other and they share interests - which would be perfect if in his mind she wasn’t so inextricably linked to his guilt complex about the loss of his mother, and if she reciprocated the feeling. Which thankfully she doesn’t (to that extent, at least; it leaves her enough reason to see things as they are) because she understands very well that what they both need in their lives is not another unstable person. She doesn’t cut ties with him entirely because after all they share many experiences and mean a lot ot each other, but she continually makes it clear that she doesn’t want to be with him - which doesn’t stop him from developing a more or less respectful, but very unhealthy obsession about her. However, while I don’t see anything remotely romantic or cute in this kind of relationship, I like how Donna Tartt executes it. Theo’s relationship with Pippa could very easily be turned into something that the reader is supposed to find romantic - the lonely, broken man pining for his childhood sweetheart - but it’s not. It’s shown for what it is: unhealthy, obsessive, damaging to both of them, a curse rather than a blessing. Which for me makes it all the more interesting, if painful, to observe.

So. Obviously, I liked the interactions between the characters and how they all make so much sense considering their personal backstories. What I didn’t like was mainly the length of it. For the entire 800+ pages the reader is stuck in Theo’s head, and let me tell you, it’s not pleasant in there. On the one hand, descriptions of drug abuse are simply not my thing, I don’t like spending a lot of time in the head of someone who’s constantly on alcohol, painkillers, cocaine and what have you. It’s doubly not my thing if the character in question is 13 years old. The part in Vegas dragged so much I was seriously tempted to put the book down, which goes against my every principle as a bibliophile. It got better when Theo was grown up because the problems of a twenty-something are more interesting to me than those of a teenager - but not much better. Because Theo keeps making the wrong choices (only one wrong choice, really) over and over again, and worse, he keeps whining about all the missed turns. Yes, it makes sense in terms of his character, someone who’s so cagey about personal information doesn’t just walk up to his guardian one day and tells him that he accidentally stole a 65 Mio. Dollar painting - but on the long term it’s so frustrating I kept wanting to shake some sense into him. Theo isn’t a take-charge character (even in the end it was thanks to Boris that the painting finally got back where it belonged), he’s someone who just floats along while wistfully looking at all the missed chances, but there’s only so much I can take of such an approach to life. And it’s definitely less than 800+ pages.

[anothalife-a]

quinn + her obsession with being prom queen.

quinn has a power problem. stemming from the trauma of being bullied for so long in middle school, quinn sees the world very simply: if she’s on top, she’s untouchable, and she will never be treated like that again. she takes it too far, belittling others to ‘keep them in their place’ and to remind them that she’s above them. it’s to protect herself, but it’s still inexcusable. 

mckinley is a hierarchy. the glee club sits at the bottom, and the football team and the cheer squad float on top ---- prom king and queen is just another boost to the top of the ladder; it isn’t all in her head, that school really does work like that. prom queen was always in the cards for her, even during the early events of season one, and pre-show; she was the most popular girl at school, with her cheerios position locked in place and the boyfriend everyone wanted to be with. if nothing had changed, prom queen would’ve been a walk in the park, both junior and senior year. 

after the birth of beth, quinn was depressed. it was unaddressed until the very last episode of season two ( in which it was done poorly, and could be interpreted differently ) and then not properly until season three, which ( again ) was done poorly, but made more obvious. but the background moments are there, she’s disinterred, unmotivated, and genuinely looks as if she’s missing something. there are two things quinn channels her energy into to, as she NEEDS something to focus on to thrive, and something to distract her; boys and prom queen. 

we all know quinn’s unhealthy relationships with men, and she even admits ( in season four ) that she lets men define her, but it’s because quinn always needs SOMETHING. she also has a thing for ‘needing’ things she can’t have, which i’ll probably talk about at some other point. but in season two, we see that quinn uses both her focus points at once, merging them into one; she needs the perfect candidate to win prom king and queen with. her affections for both sam and finn were real, but the fact their popularity and likeability would help her get the crown, and was also vital. 

since quinn fell from the top of the social ladder in perhaps the most personally humiliating way she could’ve, her need to scramble back on top worsened. the sickly sweet piano piece that followed quinn whenever her prom queen storyline progressed was enough to give away her motives. i won’t praise glee on much, but that song was always perfect. and it’s how i know when to click back onto the netflix tab when i’m doing something else.

her view of what a prom queen is is warped; she’s desperately searching for something that will make her HAPPY, and thinks that a crown and a photo in the yearbook will be it. she obsesses over it, and nobody sees it for what it is; they pin it on ‘quinn and her girl cr*zy’ and leave her to it. but with her life 'ruined’ by the previous years’ happenings, and the hole in her life that she doesn’t want to admit is there, it’s the only thing she has to focus on. so when ‘lucy’ is exposed, quinn sees it as everything she’s worked so hard for being ripped from her once again. to be happy, she had to shed lucy entirely, so not only was she reminded of a time that traumatised her so much that moved schools, changed her name, and altered her appearance entirely, but it was done in a way to shame her publicly. it would’ve been bad enough if it were done at any other time, but in the middle of prom queen campaigning, quinn sees it as the end of the line. 

her view of what a prom queen is, is perfection: skinny, pretty, smart, tall, squeaky clean, man by her side ‘perfection’ --- and while she claims she changed because she loves herself, it’s clear that she hates lucy and she hates what they did to her. she sees the ideal prom queen as someone their peers want to be, because quinn was the ‘outsider’ who longed to be the quinn she is now; it makes her mean, but it shows how much lucy affected her. ‘the girl who could never be prom queen’ transforming into a prom queen is the final affirmation that quinn is not lucy anymore. because the school now knew her past, she thought her chances of prom queen were gone.

but, and i love when this happens, quinn was proven wrong, and she LEARNED from it. while quinn was highly desired and admired, she was also seen as inhuman, since the school apparently forgot about her sophomore year, and lucy softened her. they weren’t votes of pity, they were votes cast because they saw themselves in quinn. true, the stereotypical trio of chubby girls don’t represent the entire school, as the majority do still see the world the way quinn thinks they do, but those people were still there. she knows high school doesn’t last forever, but if she makes her mark, it could perhaps get her on the right track, or at least make her high school years the best of her life, like everyone claims they are. she’s scared; she thinks she’s nothing if she’s not popular. so, she needs the crown.

so, while quinn won’t lose that many votes after her exposure, she still knows that once upon a time, she wouldn’t had to have tried at all. a stare in the hallway and a singular poster would’ve been the nudge people needed --- if they even needed one at all. she has to work harder, and push more, and having something like that to focus her energy into kept her from being the kind of self-destructive we know she’s capable of thanks to the purple piano project, and 3a.

but somehow, when it finally arrives, junior prom looks as though it’s going to be perfect; she’s attending with her first love, her dress is perfect to her and fits her perfectly, she knows that her and finn are the most obvious prom royalty choices, the corsage is perfect ( thanks to rachel ), and even her mother is taken aback by the beauty of it all, and seems genuinely excited. finn was back in her life in a big way, and everything that was lined up for them a year ago, was back in place -------- but quinn knows he’ll always have a thing for rachel, and it’s proven when finn got kicked out of the prom over rachel, and the two things that quinn focused on are gone ---- everything was supposed to be perfect ( again, quinn has a thing for perfection, but we all knew that ) but finn had eyes for rachel and couldn’t stop himself from punching jesse over her, and she can’t be crowned queen without the king who was supposed to join her; it’s messed with her perfect little plan. 

so, when she doesn’t win, she takes it personally. finn got kicked out over rachel, and quinn’s always known he had a thing for her. she believed nobody would vote for her when her date had an obvious thing for another girl, what with just happened with finn, and out of all the times it would’ve been appropriate to slap rachel, now wasn’t actually one of them, despite her feelings towards rachel being valid. she saw it as yet another way she’d been publicly humiliated, and legitimately considered transferring AGAIN. but, like all things, she gets on with it. she enjoys the rest of prom, it’s put behind her. there’s always next year.

now, i haven’t reached season three with my rewatch yet, so details may be rusty, but prom rolls around again a year later, and this time it’s her last chance. she’s campaigning with finn again, her physio is going well, and again she may have a few sympathy votes. and this time, she wins ----- and it’s evident that quinn saw the title as more than what it was, she thought she’d feel different, that everything would be worth it now, that she’d feel satisfied that her hard work paid off. it was something she was filling the void with, and her FINALLY winning but realising she was wrong, is the most quinn thing that’s ever been done. prom queen won’t replace the things she’s lost, but it gave her something to work for. handing the crown over to rachel DID make her feel something, and gave her the satisfaction she thought winning it herself would give her. it draws back into quinn always wanting what she doesn’t have, but also into her lack of awareness of what’s good for her, what she actually wants, and what happiness is. 

but also, after the events of season three, she didn’t need the power anymore. she’s been on the bottom of the bottom, treated like dirt, dragged through hell and dragged back again, and while prom queen was something she thought she always wanted, it isn’t what she needed. emotionally, quinn is problematic, and it’s often infuriating that she doesn’t see that what she needs is her friends, but it’s also understandable why she’s like this. prom queen was just another thing from a long list of substitutes for quinn’s true happiness, a thing that glee never wanted to provide her with, and never truly did.

[my-cat-is-my-only-friend]

Tumblr,

I’m so sorry that you’re my puking ground. The one place where my never ending thoughts get documented. You’re all I have right now. Please bear with me.

Lately, I’ve been questioning my sexuality. And I think I finally understand why. I think I am desperate to be seen in a different light. I want to be viewed as a person, with thoughts, and interesting ones at that. So far, in my experience, the majority if people who treat me with decency are women. 

I am 18 years old. I have been asked for more hookups than I am comfortable saying. I have tried growing a thicker skin. I have tried not letting it get to me. 

But all I can think is how I am no more than my body. I am not the sum of my mind, my thoughts, my spirit, no. I am my body. That is how I am seen. 

Earlier today my number one choice for college changed. To an all women’s liberal arts college. I wasn’t sure if I would like being in an environment surrounded by only women. The more I think about it, the better it sounds.

A place where I will not be sexualized. A place where I don’t have to feel uncomfortable or unsafe because of my body. 

Feeling unsafe and vulnerable is something I would never wish upon anyone. I have been there. More than I would like to think about. And I have been put in those situations by many people. Most claiming to love and care about me. 

I have been taken advantage of. I have been abused by men, All of who were or still are close to me. I tried to take my own life because a man I trusted with my life told me how he wanted to take it; how easily he could take it. That kind of fear is crippling. 

The words still aren’t coming to me. I want to cave in on myself. I want to exist without a body. I don't want to give anyone a chance to hurt me. I think that’s why I get so defensive. I’m scared. I act like a tough, unmovable woman. I’m still that scared little girl trying to force herself closer to that wall in the corner of her father’s bedroom, scared that her life could end in a few moments. I’ve never truly opened up to anyone about everything that happened. Maybe because I was still processing it. Maybe I didn’t want to admit I was as vulnerable and fragile as I was. Come to think of it, maybe this is why I have an unhealthy obsession with being viewed as strong and heartless. Which again, leads me to the question my therapist hated.

Who would I be without the trauma? Would I be someone worth loving then? Would I be someone worth viewing as more than a warm body? Would I be worth something, anything, without the trauma? Who would still be in my life?

No matter how I look at this, it all stems back to the same thing. 

I would never say this to my father. I love him and he feels bad enough thinking that I’m fine and recovered. I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from the abuse. I forgive him, and I don’t hold it against him. He’s a different man, for the better. 

Numb. That is all I feel right now. Everything feels like blank white walls. 

But stain them red from the blood of innocent children. And lock their screams in a jar to be slowly released for the rest of eternity. 

That’s what it feels like.

Am I broken beyond repair? Am I destined to be a record repeating itself forever? Who else am I bound to hurt? How much longer will I be repulsed by my own body, because of how it is viewed? How much longer will I be scared of being vulnerable, physically and emotionally? How much longer will I be broken? Forever? 

Now I know words aren’t my friend when I feel numb. The interesting thing is, I know the emotions are there. For whatever reason, the floodgates won’t open. I know my mind is trying to conceal them. I’ll dig them out eventually. Hopefully. Hopefully sooner than 10 years into the future. That can really mess with a person. 

Body, heartless, empty, broken, object, pain, abuser, numb, empty, hurt, dead, cold.