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katyahina · 1 year

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Bloodborne characters motivations rundown (note to self + headcanons)

Okay, so, since Bloodborne characters are so multi-faceted and open to interpretation, I often lose track in all my thoughts about what IS their point in lore as people! So uh, yeah, consider more like a self-reference to stop getting lost in multiple ideas, but I thought I’ll post here too.

The Nerds

Choir (in general): Seek guidance of the Stars that is somewhat blind and sheltered, they are only allowed to see and learn what they ‘must’ see for the ‘greater design’ they are not allowed to question as lower lifeforms. The faith is “salvation”, for transcending the filth and idiocy that humanity supposedly is.

School of Mensis (in general): Pursue objective truth of reality, without any interpretation. They are ready to forsaken any earthly attachments and human morality just like Choir, but for knowledge and autonomy, not for specific deity’s plans about “betterment” of humanity. If anything, they do and always will NEED the ‘cattle’ for sacrifices, so advancing all humanity is not in their interest.

Micolash: Is ready for the most desperate measures and to break every possible human taboo to escape the clutches of how the world works (even beyond just the corruption under Moon Presence’s reign). Ironically, despite being the leader of Mensis, he fails to truly deliver its spirit in the end, as someone wagging his tail before Kos no better than what Choir people do for Ebrietas. He sees his fanaticism as justified though because Sea provides infinitely more vast and morally-unaligned knowledge than Stars.

Imposter Iosefka: Turns people into Celestial Emissaries, effectively connecting them with ‘Stars’/Moon that means sacrifice of humanity and autonomy of mind, as means to save them from becoming beasts instead. A true new course Choir member.

Willem: Seeks knowledge from the Stars all the same but is willing to retain autonomy and instead cooperates on his own terms. His interest is way more to advance the humanity than to forsaken or “overcome” it.

Yurie/Julie: Doesn’t catch up with the new course Choir and is in much more agreement with the way Willem puts the pursuit for enlightenment. She is unwilling to rip the bandage with Rom’s concealment and gives Micolash’s madness fair benefit of the doubt because muted effects of the Bloodmoon through the concealment might slowly guide humanity to passively evolving. Like a sound that you can’t hear but is still causing a number on your brain. But more importantly - she refuses to harm or doubt Rom no matter what.

Damian: He saw the true face of the power behind the Stars, something everyone in the Choir either never faced or are in denial about, and can confirm Julie is wrong; Mensis Ritual will only make humanity suffer with hunt and beasts slowly and forever, so it is better to reveal it so everyone suffers abruptly but for at least the chance to stop Flora, even if it means many people will turn into beasts and Rom gets “killed”.

Edgar: He changed his opinions having spent a lot of time near Micolash and being able to acknowledge how limited Choir was. In his new mindset Choir is even more insane than Mensis since despite doing just as many sins they also pretend they have “good cause” and refuse to accept some harsh truths going against what’s sacred for them. However, he doesn’t swear blind loyalty to Micolash either and agrees with Mensis teachings on his own terms, nor he fully ditches Choir teachings he did hold dear and keeps some things (like Rosmarinus for example). I’d call him the case of an NPC awakening, but he never was an NPC, he is an individualist and a logician to the core.

Caryll: Feels strongly about human language being extremely limited and far too many problems caused by miscommunication. His goal is not to listen to the guidance of Great Ones, but rather to use the inhuman noises as the medium of creating a perfect nearly telepathic language that doesn’t allow misinterpreting. Hence why some runes he popularised are contradictory, or even “heretical” (ie Vileblood’s Corruption). Freedom of speech, baby!

Patches: Very Mensis-leaning. Nightmare Apostles basically were beta-Mensis! They never had the bright idea of suppressing the will of self, so most went crazy. Patches keeps learning more things but as someone that kept his identity free, he has enough fun and self-indulgence with it as well.

(Yeah, he did TURN into a monster, this bit is from interview ( x ))

Archibald: Believes that everything has a good cause to exist and if something is possible to utilise or learn more from - no religious or moral restrictions must serve the basis for rejecting it. Naturally, that brought him going against both Healing Church’s prohibitions and Choir’s taboos, so only in Mensis he could feel at home.

The Hunters

Maria: Seeing what terrible things humans end up doing for more knowledge, and what terrible things they become, she refuses to compromise (unlike Rom). As a helper in Research Hall, she had faith in “salvation” from the Stars since she was last alive even before Choir or Mensis, so she’d nudge patients to pursue Stars rather than Curse or Sea.

Brador: “Teaching fools doesn’t make them smart, it makes them dangerous fools”. Not brainwashed by the Healing Church, but rather blackpilled: in his opinion, exposing the Healing Church will not solve the problems but rather let a NEW corrupt system appear on its ruins, and there is no guarantee the new one will be as easy to navigate in and control as this one. Humans will be humans, everything is on its place, ‘lesser’ people can be just a mass and the tools in the hands of ‘knowing’ people, all that. He’s blackpilled, dude.

Simon: Believes that knowing the truth about their history and ideals will ensure that humanity can learn and do better. Additionally, after having discovered Hunter’s Nightmare, he thinks if people learn of true nature of blood “healing” and hunt they will stop the system, ie less people will end up getting blood-drunk and sent in Hell.

Djura: Came to believe hating beasts is pointless as they are simply what is found in every human and everyone could end up like this too, but realises that if everyone stops hunting then beasts will just eat people and society will end... He respects autonomy of choice and approves of hunting those beasts that are loose and dangerous, just don’t touch beasts that Just Exists and can’t harm anyone anymore.

Valtr: Believes everyone possesses the germ of evil in them, it is just a matter of when it will show up. Although many years of this approach led him to believe “nothing deserves to live”, at the core of it is just the wish to hold the world together with a firm discipline. Humanity can’t become pure, but all evil could be stopped in its core, before a person actually COMMITS it.

Gascoigne: What Valtr thinks, but less deep and complex. Destructive, if anything. Why letting someone live long enough to unleash the evil within, if they could be killed before they DID anything?

Alfred: Restless too, but targets evil that already had manifested itself rather than some complex ideas of ‘preventing’. The downside is that whether who he deems evil actually hurt anyone or not is irrelevant for him; he hunts to exterminate and not to actually protect or contribute anything. Note him not being able to sleep while Annalise, a helpless woman that can’t even spread religion that’s heretical to his church, is as much as alive, and him being the only summon in Old Yharnam where beasts that can’t hurt people above reside.

Henryk: Continues hunting very aggressively, wishing to die in battle and not from old age or, god forbid, from turning into a beast and hunted. Lurks around Byrgenwerth, having heard that a ‘secret’ in there could unlock some HARD EXTRA BOSSES!!!1! if slaughtered. What would that mean for innocent citizens? Shhhruuuuug. This one is also not my own conclusion, but a thing lost in translation ( x ), as localization instead picked the ‘his parthnership with Gascoigne led to his tragically long life’.

Younger Madaras: Loyal to Valtr and his vision of evil (the Impurity) like a dog. He welcomed civilisation and humanity as a concept through Valtr’s lense.

Yamamura: Something about his tender heart didn’t agree with Valtr’s ways, however, he is too stubborn to admit “weakness” so even after having not seen the League in a long while he continues to try and seek Vermin even if it’s driving him crazy. (He has courage and pride and sense of justice, but isn’t ‘dead inside’ enough for the Mission.)

Gratia: Fights for everything good and against everything bad. Nuff said. She has extremely well-developed intuition for good intentions though, so it is not as easy to manipulate her to be a weapon in the hands of injustice and corruptions as it seems.

Henriett: Honors the ways of Old Hunters and deeply resents what Healing Church became and how it forgot Old Hunters ways. Seeks to dismantle the system and bring the Hunt in the way Gehrman intended it, however is willing to release Laurence and Ludwig from the Nightmare from mercy alone. General Hunter outfit that is just bootleg Old Hunters wear is popularised by her.

Gehrman: At the core, is up to hunt everything that is not a human (anymore). He hates Beasts and Kin and ‘monsters’ all the same, however tangled his fate with Moon Presence only to win time for Laurence and the Healing Church. Having an immortal-for-the-night Hunter could help to sustain the beasts while the “nerds” (see above) seek for the way to advance humanity for good. He was sealed back in time of Willem’s approach (advance humanity, not erase it), so it seemed like a fair sacrifice. He keeps his duty still, determined to not let any other person to suffer this fate.

Eileen (and all Hunters of Hunters): Mercy-killing blood drunk hunters before they turned into a beast. Since very first HoHs, no hunter wanted to live long enoug to lose their humanity anyways.

Bloody Crow of Cainhurst: Like guardians of Annalise do, he seeks Blood Dregs within blood-drunk hunters for Annalise, and job of Hunter of Hunters is a perfect access to them. He is long unable to reach Annalise though, and their telepathical blood bond has faded, so he is simply committed to this duty out of habit. When you consume a Blood Dreg it gives you +1 Insight though, so I think he consumes them himself, aspiring to eventually reach the Vileblood hivemind through Insight alone. Not an impossible task though; he can swear he senses ‘something significant’ stronger and stronger with every next one. Inspired by this confusing bit:

Logarius/Rogeriusz: Having killed the King taught him that Vileblood royals cannot just perish and their wrathful spirit is unstoppable, hence he can’t kill Annalise and instead has to keep her hostage. Partially it is also because of forming an amalgam with the King (think of when Aldrich ate Gwyndolin). At this point he is aware of the Healing Church’s schemes to nourish hostility against Vilebloods to justify breaking in and taking Annalise’s child of blood (and establishing enough control), but believes simple people will benefit more by counting on a sweet lie and a honourable legend.

Ludwig: Has faith in the things smarter than humans like every other character in this darn setting, that slowly grows into fanatism. Unlike average Choir fanatics though, he is in the direct contact with the Moon without the Stars ‘filter’ before it, but it grew on him slowly and insidious enough to not let him get revolted and horrified before it’s too late to have ANY critical thinking.

Forgotten Madman: He heard about Ludwig’s discovery and ran off from Choir while they were not looking with his butler/servant/escort. To meet the power BEHIND their Ebrietas! He tries to do so by emulating the conditions in which Ludwig met the Guidance - by setting an analogical sword in Arcane light and staring intensely. What a great plan.

Izzy: Sympathises with ideas of Fauna the Great One Beast and is willing to bring beasthood within men UP to start the new era of humanity, instead of repressing it (like Healing Church), exterminating it (like other hunters) or transcending it (like Choir or Mensis or earlier doctors). In her eyes, it is the true form of the humanity, not the flaw of it!

Josef: Average successor of Izzy’s ways, tries to discover the true power and meaning of beasthood in Loran where it first came from. By the way, there is enemy variant of him that even shares the face data and existed prior DLC, that IS called イジーの後継 (Successor of Izzy, localized as Izzy’s Admirer). So yeah. lost fanboys.

Queen Killer: A veteran of Cainhurst crusade that was still aching for the noble battle and had his power and vigour useful for Mensis to reach Queen Yharnam. Was left in the dungeons to die though. He is just surviving now!

Antal: He can’t simply dismantle School of Mensis, of course, but doesn’t have the heart to just run away despite not being able to take it anymore, so he simply helps whatever prisoners he can to run away.

Yahar’gul hunter in Church’s cells: Was someone who shared Antal’s mindset but he did decide to run with Yamamura to help him, Simon and Gratia to get to the bottom of some secrets as someone who heard a thing of two in Mensis but was afraid to let Yamamura run alone.

Yahar’gul hunters in general: Were glad to serve School of Mensis after the “normie” (blood ministration oriented) Healing Church started the blame of foreigners and they got under the rug (note how 5 out of 7 Yahar’gul hunters we saw are not white). Currently are okay to stay there working with residing Pthumerians. They forgot the meaning of the hunt long ago and are too caught up in rituals and alike, kidnapping more victims for Pthumerians to make The One Reborn from. Just can’t go back to normal beasts hunting after being in contact with so much insanity, but do acknowledge that they are fighters rather than scholars.

Bone Ash Hunters: They know exactly what brought doom in the very nature of Pthumerians and humans and set themselves in fire to cleanse from the ‘sin’ everyone that has blood has. As Pthumerian lore bits suggest, they guard the Great Ones so nobody messes with them again.

Other people

Laurence: Genuinely cared for humanity and thought there was a good way to advance it on humans’ own terms, and not by listening to Great Ones like Willem offered. Improving ‘broken’ humanity by using ideas of humanity that IS ‘broken’ and therefore offers ‘broken’ ideas by design, huh... He is quite machiavellian and acknowledges many sacrifices and immoral decisions should be made for the greater purpose. What he had to do to accomplish his goals reflected the EXACT cruelty and hubris that he wanted to save the humanity FROM though, so his descent into beast increased upon realisation and despair.

Adeline: She has always felt broken and insignificant, within heavy depression, and blood ministration, and soon - Research Hall - were seen as her lucky ticket to become someone ‘meaningful’. This mindset helped her to wade through all horrors of the Sea with eagerness and joy, nothing the Sea could show her about nature of the world or her own mattered if she could learn how things REALLY were and overcome it.

Amelia/Emilia: Removed whatever successorship there might be after her but doesn’t have any idea on how to improve the situation or face the backlash by trying to be truthful with people, as someone raised within Church’s walls and mentality. I mean, who can she ask how to change Yharnam to the better? Remaining fanatics that won’t listen, or people who are already hostile to the church? So she just awaits her end and hopes when Healing Church crumbles with her death, things will somehow solve themselves.

Iosefka: Not as radical as her twin sister, however, now forever feels strongly about drawbacks of the “healing” blood, so she makes sure to clean it from red and leave only parts that actually heal. Not as effectively as ‘true’ blood, but it is a blood clean of what causes beasthood or Frenzy. She just wants to treat people with clean consciousness as a true good doctor, no matter how much time and effort it takes.

Blood Minister: He insists that any newcomer gets transfusion of the healing blood before entering Yharnam, as it is virtually impossible to survive without any at this rate. Someone with ‘clean’ blood would attract aggression of beasts even more than any other human, and everything Arcane would cause insanity from the slightest impact. It is like getting a vaccine before entering a heavily virus infested place.

Afflicted Beggar: He survives, and used to be a bit more restricted and reluctant about such a life. He became a beast not over any transfusion, but because of ancient curse of his Loran descendance having manifested. Naturally, he holds a FAT grudge against Hunters (and society in general) for throwing themselves to meet such fate when he had no choice. The life of having to lurk and hide and be lonely because nobody will try to help him with anything but the bullet in the head taught him to even ‘enjoy’ this existance, and hunt more humans than he actually needs to survive.

Annalise: Pthumerians were seeking to conceive children of blood to stay in touch with the cosmos and magic on different terms than those who care for celestial larvae, and Annalise’s reign is around where Vilebloods rediscovered this practice. She lost one such child because of Executioners but doesn’t mind trying again.

Adella: Only kills Arianna if she gave Hunter enough of her blood, and only kills hunter in this scenario after Bloodmoon. So, what Alfred is, but much more tame, only snapping after a person fails their “chance”. Just an average brainwashed church person. with the knife

The Great Ones

Rom: She hides horrors of the cosmos, however leaves small penetration through her barrier for those with enough Insight (ie ‘you can seek the truth if you are ready or want it, but people who are not prepared should be spared and do their thing’).

Kos: She used to guide the bulwark between mortal world and cosmos like what Rom does now but without any influence. However, she has a lot of humanity for a Great One and wished to care and love rather than use, hence the village of people that became fish/slugs that worshipped her, and a half-human infant. Her echo lived through Micolash and Rom to offer true life and wisdom to those that are strong enough to seek the Sea and to curse those that inadvertently follow the design of Moon Presence (so, the blood-drunk hunters). She is very weak and wounded though, and even those that overcome horrors of the Sea to hear her will essentially get the “Go away to your precious Moon! :/” from her (that’s essentially the Milkweed and alike runes). It is massive trust issues even for those that believe they want to learn her wisdom - again, a very human trait.

Wet Nurse: She was one of the crowlike beings that lived on the Sun and descended to Pthumerians to give them pyromancy to withstand the beasthood. Having seen that mortals never learned and repeated the same sin, she collects Messengers appearing after every night of the hunt to make them into heads of Winter Lanterns, to spread the message about true nature of the Hunt and the Moon. They transmit ‘Hunt the Great Ones’ + ‘Three Third Cords’ on high Insight level, alas, in most cases, people just explode in Frenzy spears. Frenzy is uncanny understanding of what is going on with the world, as well as reaction of the blood to crystallise into weapons. As someone who lost blood by descending, she also never was able to have a child of her own, so she took Mergo.

Flora / Moon Presence: Oh boy. Ohhhhh boooy... She has been a corrupt and controlling Great One from the start, but the one willing to grant protection in exchange for autonomy. Her unborn infant was killed and consumed right from her guts with her, and at this rate grief and wrath ensured she is more cruel and insidious, she is a bit like a beast herself, even. She hides her true nature and motives behind the image of Stars.

Oedon: They WERE Flora’s unborn child! They only exist as the voice in the blood, and are the reason why upon touch of arcane and alike it has properties to petrify or crystallise (check blood gems, especially circular, and Frenzy spears made of person’s blood). This IS the sin that Bone Ash Hunters burn themselves for. Oedon urges the Hunt and the bloodshed deep on unconscious level of humanity as means to reconnect with Flora. Frenzy spears are both the person realising they must hunt Flora and Oedon screaming ‘MOM!!!’. Because, again, this Great One’s true nature is bloodspill.

(I talked about Frenzy a bit more in this ( x ) post! Also, yeah, apparently, Oedon’s pronoun is ambigious in JP original. Translator Last Protagonist uses it and Aruki Mania walks around to not use any pronouns.)

Ebrietas: The only Celestial larvae that lived to adulthood, and the greatest (no pun intended) tool in the hands of Moon Presence, however largely unaware of her true purpose and the horror behind her. Whatever she did realise she’d deny or didn’t care about enough. She weeps for humanity and wishes it salvation and advancement, whereas Flora benefits from the cycle of sin, hunt and suffering. There is an awful hypocrisy and uncertainty that leaves unclear whether the (reigning) deities are upset by wars and madness of humanity or feed off of it, as Flora, Ebrietas and Oedon are united like Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Ebrietas’ affiliation got shaken though and some of her blood, too, became red and not grey, when Rom ascending and being used caused her Grinch heart moment.

(Internal names source: ( x ))

Amygdalae: Children of blood and antipodes of celestial children, offering not salvation but “forbidden” knowledge, they are demons when celestial children are angels. One must be strong willed and capable enough to trade with them though, or else they themselves will become sacrifices, as Amygdalae eat people to grow stronger.

Fauna: Opposed Flora’s controlling design from the very start and rooted for the mortals to discover all opportunities and mysteries of the world and their own nature. He currently exists as just an echo, only sustained by ones like Beast-Possessed Souls and undead Darkbeasts. Bolt is HIS magic though - symbol of a light that can be used to find one’s own path, rather than cosmic light like stars or moon that has it’s own design in plan. Fauna is not a fanmade name by the way, but appreared as cut content! ( x )

That’s all I think! Missed just a few characters, but I think I won’t get confused by them. I mean, Arianna survives the way she can, Sceptical Man is being a boomer, all that. xd Thank you if you read to this point though!

#bloodborne #bloodborne headcanons #multi character post #not art #text post #bloodborne theory #i was going to just make a small messy post in my personal blog #but it was getting longer and longer and more solid....#so i decided to post it here instead!#i only post something in this blog once per month or less anyways

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flamekinz · 5 months

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What I wish Wish would be

Now, I have not seen Wish, I have only seen reviews, but I think I can already think of a better overall plot with an actualized background for Magnifico.

I’d say Magnifico was always a good, if not paranoid, ruler. He made good decisions and ruled his kingdom fairly. But when he granted a wish that made someone else steal his spotlight, he went full paranoid. ‘What if they like him more?' 'What if he doesn't like me?' 'What happens when he gets more support than me?'

He sabotages the next few wishes tricky genie style, where you get what you want, but there are unwanted ramifications. So Magnifico pulls out a solution, wish makers forget their wish until its granted, that way the people don't go out making issues. He then begins granting less and less wishes under the guise of safety. Now Magnifico has control and he feels safe that there's no threats to his reign.

Enter Asha and her wish, to grant everyone’s wishes. She’s young and naieve and excited to give Magnifico her wish, hanging back so that her wish is last and would supposedly domino into granting everyone’s wishes. But when she sees one of her friends blissfully unaware of the wish she has given up, Asha becomes horrified by the reality and sneaks away to steal her friend’s wish back, to grant it or remind her friend of it, Asha’s not quite sure.

Then she overhears a conversation between king and queen on the danger’s of wishes going wrong and how they need to study ramifications before granting, but the ramifications Asha hears are all rather petty by her standards.

So Asha grabs a few more wishes and an escape scene happens, leading her to have 3-4 wishes of various relation to her, and wondering how she’s going to grant the wishes, as she doesn’t know magic, the wishing Star shows up to help, having been wished upon.

Asha then goes around trying to grant the wishes she has, all the while making sure the town guards and Magnifico don’t find her or what she’s doing. And the wish granting goes alright, but since Asha isn’t as experienced and the Star kind of does run on literal genie wishes, things do go awry, practically reinforcing Magnifico’s propaganda that wishes can be harmful.

All this while, Magnifico is having a spiraling panic attack. Someone else can grant wishes. Someone else could be liked more than him.

Someone could take away his power.

So he starts going mad tyrant in trying to find Asha, starting with reasonable commands (someone did break into the castle after all) to deranged (something like ‘bring in all the children, they seem to be getting their wishes, one of them has to be the thief’).

Eventually the conflict boils down to Asha vs Magnifico on what to be done with the wishes. Asha and Star get to where all of the wishes are being kept, but it overloads Star as they try to grant all the wishes at once. Magnifico catches up and starts going on a villain monologue as he chases Asha down in the magical chaos, berating her for the carelessness of her wish granting. Asha shoots back on how a wish is only the first step in a journey that someone needs help to begin going on. Magnifico reveals his ‘tragic’ backstory (where plot twist he’s actually Asha’s grand-uncle, the older brother of her grandfather, where he granted Asha’s grandfather a wish and he thought it would destabilize the country, so brought him down and wiped his memory.)

Unfortunately he has declared his bit deranged methodology in the middle of town square, neither of which Asha or Magnifico realized with their chase in the magic chaos storm.

The grandfather comes forward, dazed and confused at the revelation, but forgives his brother, saying he only ever wished for the kingdom’s prosperity, including Magnifico. That sincere wish helps Star refocus and undo his damage, and Magnifico is helped up from his frantic state.

Things are cleaned up and Magnifico beings granting more wishes with the help of his family.

…

Now could this be fleshed out better? Of course. Is the surprise family reveal super convenient? Maybe. But this is just a rough idea on how I would make Wish with what little I know.

#disney #wish 2023 #king magnifico #princess asha

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crossdressingdeath · 1 year

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Potentially unpopular opinion: Percy's fatal flaw, especially as portrayed in PJO, is the most faux flaw shit. "Oh no, he loves his friends too much!" Fuck off. At least in HoO it's followed up with the genuinely interesting "He struggles to let other people do things he knows are dangerous because he hates to see them put themselves in danger even knowing they have to do it themselves" (although I'd still argue that the extremely limited group that falls under "other people" in terms of this is more of a flaw than the flaw itself) but PJO's setup of "Oh you'd sacrifice the world to save a friend" is made the fakest flaw imaginable by the fact that he... doesn't. It makes him sad to leave his mother in Hades or leave Beckendorf to die aboard the Princess Andromeda, he doesn't like doing it (I mean, who would), but he still does it without any real hesitation. When I think "fatal flaw" I think "thing that really, seriously screws them over, but they can't stop doing it even if they know it's a bad thing", especially if it would've been fine or even good in moderation (which is also why I see Nico's fatal flaw as self-sacrifice rather than holding grudges; the former hurts him significantly more than the latter to the point where I can't actually think of a single point where Nico ever holds a grudge that backfires on him, unless you count him still being mad at Percy for failing to save Bianca six months after it happened and not trusting him as a result, which I don't, because that's stupid). I don't think "being sad about having to do something that would make anyone sad, but still doing it because it's necessary". ...Actually even with HoO's addition it's still kind of. no one likes leaving people they love to do things alone when they know it'll hurt them, Percy, you aren't special.

If we'd ever seen him actually put a quest at risk or put himself or others in serious danger because he couldn't make a move that might sacrifice a loved one or let a loved one face danger alone, then I'd buy it and it'd be a good flaw. But he really doesn't? As mentioned he feels sad about leaving Sally in Hades and leaving Beckendorf on the ship to save himself, but he still does it. And while he doesn't like that Annabeth is going to face Arachne alone, the closest he gets to interfering in the search is asking to come with her at the Tiber (but backing down when he's told he can't). Is it a character flaw? It could be. Is it a big enough deal to be his fatal flaw, the thing that will likely ultimately lead to his downfall? Uh... not so much. Like, it could have been really good, we could've seen him actually get screwed over or screw others over because he can't let a loved one get hurt or die even if it's necessary to avoid further harm, but he doesn't! Hell, he gets past his "fatal flaw" before he even learns what it is, he leaves Sally in the Underworld for the sake of the quest in book one and there's no argument on the planet that could successfully claim Percy doesn't love his mom! You can't even argue that knowing about his fatal flaw was necessary for him to overcome it! Which kind of sucks, given that that's part of the reasoning for why it was important for Annabeth to know hers: you can't overcome it if you have no idea what it is, but apparently Percy can do so just fine.

At the end of the day Percy's fatal flaw, the thing most likely to get him killed as a hero, seems to at most make him upset about things anyone would be upset about. Which is a shame, because loyalty as a flaw is a fun concept to play with, but when the person whose fatal flaw it supposedly is is not the one most negatively affected by his loyalty by a mile (everyone wave to Nico, who could learn a thing or two about knowing when to risk a loved one from Mr. Can't Sacrifice People) it just doesn't work. And to be clear, it is not a bad thing that Percy knows when he has to let something bad happen to someone he cares about for the good of the world! Literally the only problem with it is that we're told he can't do it to the point that it's the thing that will inevitably screw him over as a hero... but we're shown that he can do it with no more difficulty than anyone else.

#riordanverse #i HATE all the established fatal flaws except annabeth's #...all two of them #they do not fit!#but with percy especially his ACTIONS suggest he doesn't find sacrificing a loved one or letting them risk themself #any harder than anyone else would in his position #so rick TELLING us his loyalty is his fatal flaw just falls apart the moment you think about it #(not to be obvious about who my favourite is but it bears repeating that it's especially bad in comparison with nico)#(who is the person percy most often DOES leave to take risks USUALLY ON PERCY'S BEHALF without a second thought)

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astragreenwoode · 10 months

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The Spitfire Curse - Chapter Four

Previous: Chapter Three • Next: Chapter Five • Masterlist • AO3 Version

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Pairings: Billy Hargrove x Fem!OC (Only Mentioned)

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-Con, Non-specified Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Drug Use, Hypersexuality, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Hearing Voices

Genre: Adventure, Thriller, Horror, Slow-Burn Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort. Smut, Fluff, Slight Canon-Divergence, Fix-it fic

As always, thank you @take-everything-you-can for your beta reading and all your feedback!

Chapter Four: Filled With A Distrust In Authority

Word Count: 8,374

Chapter Warnings: Disembodied Voices, Police Brutality, Anxiety, Self-Deprecating Thoughts, Assault, References to Murder and other Criminal Activities, Mentions of Drug Use, Self-Harm, Mental Illness

Chapter Summary: Maeven reflects on her relationship with cops before her nerve-wracking meeting with the police chief of Hawkins, who turns out to be the complete opposite of what she expected.

June 1982

Billy and I had our fair share of run-ins with the cops. I can count on both hands the times we were caught smoking weed, trespassing in abandoned buildings, or fooling around in his Camaro. We were only arrested or put in a holding cell twice, but it was twice too many times. Mom and Dad gave me hour-long lectures that ended up with me running to my room and slamming the door on them as I yelled back, “I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

I never used to do that before.

I wasn’t always frightened of cops. Up until I learned about the Gay Liberation Movement from my uncle, I saw them as people I could trust with my life and safety. But even then, I always felt some uneasiness shaking up my body. Even though I knew I was supposedly ‘safe,’ their presence filled me with a fear similar to the kind when I would get in trouble with a teacher when I didn’t even understand what I did wrong.

After my uncle told me his story of being in so many protests and what cops did to people like him, like me, my seemingly pointless fear of authority figures was validated. This wasn’t long after I had my first kiss with a girl in Middle School.

Even if this sudden realization made my life feel on edge from there on out, something that was constant during this period in my life was my Dad; I never felt unsafe with him. And I had a better understanding with him about why he’d have Max and I favor him instead of the cops in terms of our safety. The waters of doubt became clearer after I was arrested for the first time.

My friend, Emily Bernard, was my first ever kiss and almost girlfriend, but we were awkward with each other whenever we weren’t making out. Her brother, Jordan, was my first-ever boyfriend. He was my first everything. On one hand, being his girlfriend kept me safe from the possible bullying I’d get if it got out that I liked girls. On the other hand, I genuinely did like Jordan. Being with a guy could be just as charismatic and breathtaking as being with a girl.

Sure, he was a bit clueless and headstrong, but he meant well. He was reckless with himself for fun, and I was always the one to talk him out of making bad decisions. It was exhausting at times, but we really enjoyed each others’ company. I was naive enough to think that maybe, just maybe, we’d be together forever. Maybe it was my inner child still trying to hold onto that fantastical hope that disappeared the older you get. Maybe it was my brain telling me how much I needed close bonds like this in order to survive, the way animals do in the wild. But I wasn’t a princess. I wasn’t an animal. I wasn’t in a fairytale. Life wasn’t perfect.

When I was a freshman in high school, two years into our relationship, I found out that Jordan cheated on me. He was my first heartbreak, the last first he’d ever be to me. Even when he tried to deflect my anger toward the girl he hooked up with, I stayed mad at him. He was the one in a relationship. Jordan could’ve simply told her that, but he didn’t. It was the fact that he chose not to that made me so mad, and it was insulting to try and make himself out as the victim.

After a week of burying my heartache in ice cream and horror movie marathons with Max and a month of avoiding eye contact with Jordan at school, I went to his house to drop off a box of his things we kept in my room. I was also hoping to get my stuff from his room in return. It was what adults did; it was the mature thing to do. I had come to terms with our breakup and was ready to move on.

But we weren’t adults; we were kids. And more often than not, kids are villainously petty. The day I came back to the Bernard family home to return Jordan’s things, I went from mature to petty in a flash. It was a cool summer night as I was about to ring the doorbell, I heard Jordan curse out in the backyard.

“OW! GODDAMIT!”

When I trailed around the house, I found him tripping over a bundle of tree branches. He was really good at building fires. We used to camp a lot. As soon as I saw I box with all my things I left with him next to the roaring fire pit, I lost my shit. It was the first time I heard the jumbled voice that taunted me with intrusive thoughts and impulsiveness.

They told me, “Fuck being the bigger person! He’s about to burn all your shit! Are you gonna let him get away with that, Maeven?”

Without even realizing it, I snuck up on Jordan so that the next time he turned around, he’d scream and fall backward.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He screamed like your average horror movie victim; it was probably the reason he didn’t like to watch them with me. Jordan could be tough and headstrong in certain situations but was a clumsy scaredy-cat once he stepped outside of them.

“Oh, hey, Mae-Mae! Hi, uhmmm, what. . .what’re you doing here?”

“You don’t get to fucking call me that, Jordan! Not anymore! So, I’ll ask you again; what the hell are you doing?!”

As he awkwardly looked me up and down, he frantically gathered the branches and threw them into the fire pit with some old clothes I didn’t recognize. It must’ve been for kindling.

“What’re you doing here?”

I rolled my eyes. Did he honestly think I was that stupid? Did he not see the completely obvious box of his things I had in my hands?

“I asked you first,” I sneered at him. He jumbled on his words momentarily, making random vowels and sounds before straightening his train of thought.

“Spring cleaning?” He gave me a nervous smile that said ‘please buy it,’ as he began sweating.

“It’s June, and that’s a fire,” I pointed out.

His pupils dilated with panic as he stood up before a lame attempt was made to hide my box of stuff behind his dumbass legs as if I hadn’t already seen it. One of my worst pet peeves of his was how he refused to admit when he was cold. I rarely saw him out of shorts.

“My turn. What’re you doing here?”

“I was gonna be the bigger person and return the stuff you left at my house before proceeding to never speak to you again.” I gestured to the box of his things in my grasp before placing my hand on my hip and tilting my head.

“Good for you, Maeven. I’m proud of you,” he said so matter-of-factly. I could tell he was bursting with the energy he needed to make a run for the house.

“Yeah. But now. . .now I’m having second thoughts.”

The closest thing to Jordan shitting his pants was his heart dropping into his stomach. He had never seen me this angry before, but I had been bottling up all the bullshit he made me endure these past two years.

“Really? Why is that?”

If it were possible, he’d fill a barrel of nervous sweat like an old cartoon.

“Because you’re burning my shit, Jordan! That’s why!” I almost cut him off, my intrusive thoughts and instinct response jumping against his verbal attack.

“No I wasn’t,” he defended himself, surprisingly calm. “Can I have my box back now?”

Yes. This was the hill I was willing to die on.

“I don’t know, Jordan! Can I have my virginity back?!”

The world around us suddenly went deadly silent and laced with tension. Jordan’s eyes widened in shock, but he remained speechless. If I’d been able to see beyond my anger at his betrayal, I would’ve noticed the small changes in his body that indicated when his heart split in half.

“I didn’t even burn it, yet!” he whined.

“But you were going to,” I clarified. His eyes widened as he realized he was caught red-handed in a lie.

“. . .shit.”

As if he was an animal using its defense mechanisms, he took one of the branches out of the fire pit and swung it at me, hitting my arm as the flames burnt my skin. It felt like someone pushed me into a hot grill.

“Are. . .you. . .SERIOUS?!?!”

My face scrunched up in anger as I subconsciously threw his box on the fire pit. I didn’t feel the pain in my knuckles until after it collided with his face; at least it didn’t hurt as much as my arm burned. It shouldn’t have felt as good as it did to see him clutching his face on the grass like that as he pinched his nose to stop the flow of blood. He was pathetic before, but he looked even more so now.

“What’re you two idiots doing??” Emily yelled at us as she stood on the porch.

“I’m not an idiot!” Jordan and I yelled in unison.

“Right,” she rolled her eyes. “Hey, Idiot and Maeven. Knock it off.”

I let out a laugh so unnecessarily loud, making me feel even better than before now that I knew at least someone was on my side. . .for now.

“Whose side are you on??” Jordan whined again, getting up to walk towards the porch to his sister.

“Let’s see who wins first, then I’ll decide,” she replied.

“She burnt my stuff, Em!” he yelled, using his now blood-covered hand to point at me like a tattling toddler. “Skating and rock music have driven her to violence!”

I walked right up to him as he backed off like a cornered rabbit. I got up right in his face as I narrowed my eyes.

“You were gonna burn my stuff first, Jordan! And the only thing that has driven me to violence is you, you small-dicked son of a bitch!”

At my last syllable, he stumbled backward on his feet and knocked the back of his head on the wooden railing of the porch.

“HA!” Emily laughed before covering her mouth with her hand.

Jordan got up almost immediately and towered over me, ready to defend his honor.

“I told you never to mention that!” he yelled, shoving my shoulders, forcing me to step back from him a bit. I turned my eyes toward Emily.

“Will you please talk some sense into your lunatic of a brother!?”

She exhaustedly groaned, tilting her head up to the sky.

“You’re both acting like lunatics! And if you don’t knock it the hell off, someone’s gonna call the cops!”

In her defense, we were pretty loud.

“Fine. I’ll go as soon as you apologize and give me back my stuff,” I said, turning my head to Jordan. He had gotten what he deserved. I burnt his stuff, gave him a bloody nose, and announced the size of his dick to his whole neighborhood. That should’ve satisfied me, I should’ve known when to walk away, but I didn’t.

“Apologize?!” he laughed in my face. “I don’t have to apologize for anything, Maeven! You punched me in the face and burnt my shit! And technically, you don’t get a say in what I do with ‘your’ shit. You left it at my house, therefore, it's mine.”

I considered punching him again, but I didn’t. It would’ve landed me in more trouble than I already was about to be in.

“There she is! Right there!”

I turned around to see Mr. Bernard pointing his finger at me, two cops behind him as they stomped their way toward me. One of them took out their set of handcuffs.

“Dad?” Emily asked him. “What’re you doing?!”

“Oh, shit-AAAHH!!”

Before I knew it, one of the cops shoved me in the chest and sent me falling backward on the grass. My head collided with the ground and made my ears ring as I tried to find my bearings.

The one without the handcuffs aggressively turned me over onto my stomach before proceeding to push his knee into the small of my back. It forced the air out of my stomach and lungs. My brain tried to force my body to move, but I was frozen in place. I understood now that it was my body’s way of keeping me safe; it knew better than my head that I couldn’t fight this situation.

“What the hell!? I didn’t do anything!”

He shoved my head into the grass with his hand as his partner bound my hands. They hauled me up by the chain of the cuffs as they dug into my wrists, roughly grabbing my arms as they dragged me away.

“You’re under arrest for domestic violence and destruction of property. You have the right to remain silent-”

I blocked them out and turned my eyes to the Bernards.

“You’re arresting me for a bloody nose and a bad breakup?!” I scoffed. “Are you fucking kidding me?! He’s the one who burnt me!”

I couldn’t prove it, but I swear that one of them dug his fingers into the fresh burn on my arm. My feet refused to move as they dragged me along the grass from the backyard to their squad car; it was hard to believe this was really happening. It certainly wasn’t necessary for them to be this aggressive with a 5’4 fifteen-year-old girl.

“Dad, what’re you doing?!” Emily yelled behind me.

I could hear them trailing behind us as one of the cops kicked at my feet, forcing me to stand and walk with them.

“She assaulted him! It’s the least she deserves!” Mr. Bernard replied to his daughter.

“Dad, it’s just a bloody nose! I’m fine! Just let her go!”

That was certainly a surprise. It was the first time I heard Jordan show any type of courage. Even after I burnt his things and punched him, he wanted to help me.

“Maeven, it’s gonna be fine! I’ll call your mom!”

“What?! No!” I turned to Emily as the cops pushed me into the back of the car. “She’ll kill me! Call my Dad!”

“I don’t have his number!”

“Fuck! Okay, just. . .just don’t worry about it, Em. Okay?” I yelled through the glass. “Don’t call anyone. I’ll call him when I get there.”

As they drove me away to the station, I wasn’t certain of it, but I thought I could see Jordan mouthing ‘I’m sorry’ to me. I shut my eyes and did my best to put my mind anywhere else but here. I wasn’t being arrested. This wasn’t happening. I was with my Dad and my sister in the woods. We were having fun. Everything was fine. It felt like heaven.

That trick never worked, but I still try it to this day.

A week later, I found my box of stuff returned to me on the front steps of my house, along with a note I didn’t have the strength to read. Jordan was officially the bigger person in this equation.

. . .

Without his morning cup of coffee, Jim Hopper couldn’t comprehend the busy sounds of the police station; the ringing of the phones, Flo’s daily notifications about his upcoming meetings, and the occasional pats on his back for just being present before noon. The small coffee machine was a gift from God, he convinced himself. A sip from the strong, fresh-brewed cup of coffee melted away all his sleep deprivation, muscle tension, and lingering hangover; as well as the headache from taking care of a certain little girl whom he shared his cabin with.

Taking a seat at his desk, his vision cleared and focused as he stared into his cup as he added his desired amount of sugar and a splash of the thick creamer. Hopper faced the tower of manilla folders, stacked as high as they could go without tipping over. He flipped open the folder on top before being interrupted by a rapid knock at the door.

“What?” he groaned out. There was never a moment of peace around here.

“Well, good morning to you, too, Hop. Or should I say ‘afternoon?’” Flo let out a laugh. She flopped yet another Manilla file on his desk right in front of him, almost tipping over his coffee. The digital clock on his desk read 3:26 PM in red letters.

“Flo, why would you do that? Can you seriously not see the big stack right next to me?” he whined, palming his face and rubbing his eyes with both hands. Flo rolled her eyes.

“This might just be my personal opinion, Hop, but if you didn’t spend most nights drinking and your mornings nursing your hangovers, maybe that damn stack wouldn’t be as tall as the Empire State Building,” she retorted back at him, hand on her hip.

“You’ve never been out of Hawkins, Flo. How do you know how big the Empire State Building is?”

“Just read the damn file, smartass. It’s the most recent one, anyway. You got a meeting with them in about a half hour, so study up.” Flo had worked with him long enough to know he needed a playfully harsh nudge to get his ass going in the morning. She wasn’t gonna let him get off that easy after showing up late and only working for a couple of hours. And Hopper thought it was the coffee that did it.

Before strutting her way out of his office, she turned to him once more for a final note. “Also, you’re four o’clock is running behind, so don’t expect to be out of here before five tonight, you big oaf,” Flo added, one hand on the doorknob while the other pushed up her glasses. Hopper softly banged his head against the top of his desk in response, pointing to the hot cup of coffee in his fist.

“You want this open or closed?” she laughed out.

“Closed.”

Flo left the door halfway open; a compromise.

The Chief picked his head up and let out a long and therapeutic groan, blindly opening the folder in front of him. He kept his eyes closed for a short moment of calm to officially prepare himself for the rest of the day, however long that ended up being. The contents of the now open file caught his eye, as it was faxed to him all the way from San Diego. How did someone end up in the back-forty of Indiana from the busy city streets in California?

Margaret Maeven Mayfield, it read, a month away from turning eighteen. Hopper could’ve sworn he had heard ‘Mayfield’ somewhere before. It sounded like a distantly blurred name of someone from his military days. Now wide awake, he actually took his time to thoroughly read it in all its details instead of just skimming over the fine print to get each case knocked out as soon as possible. ‘Maeven’ was certainly a unique choice for a middle name. He wondered what it meant.

Despite being reported as being intimidatingly smart and well-behaved by all the staff at her old school and the San Diego police, Margaret had made quite the case for herself as a rebel. Her first arrest was when she was fifteen. The charges, in order, were Domestic Violence, Destruction of Property, Drug Possession, Vandalism, Public Indecency, Public Intoxication, Assault, Inciting a Riot, and Manslaughter. What was even more enticing was that most of all these charges were dropped against the girl, and she was sentenced to community service instead of jail time. Apparently, she was very enthusiastic about her punishment and was rewarded for her work by the community. Who does that? Certainly, not anyone Hopper knows.

Her mugshot emanated an unsettling tone of both heartbreak and terror. She was randomly splashed with blood as she held her name up in front of her, her eyes sunken in. They were dark, both in and under, but still wide as if she had just come face-to-face with the devil himself. She looked so scared. Margaret had a past as wild as Hopper’s entire life had been, and she hadn’t even finished High School yet; expelled from School after her assault, a history of fighting and drug problems, and three months in an In-Patient Mental Institution was enough to grab anyone’s attention, let alone a Police Officer’s.

He knew appearances could be deceiving, but the known victim and suspected criminal looked nothing more than a scared little kid. It reminded Hopper of the Munson boy; practically stolen after his mother’s overdose, both done by the hands of his father, Al Munson. Poor little Eddie just got dealt the wrong cards and had no choice but to accept his place in society as the future resident burnout, both put in place and enforced by the league soccer moms in Hawkins. Hopper wasn’t sure any kid deserved that, even if Munson and Maeven weren’t really kids, anymore. How could someone so young and full of life be accused of so many horrific things?

Jim let his mind wander for a moment back to the times when he himself was a dumb teenager who didn’t know any better. Under the young girl’s circumstances, he could definitely see how and why wrongful accusations could be made against her. He saw himself in the file; a misunderstood kid from the other side of town guilty of nothing but defying their ‘destiny’ and tainting their reputation as a straight-laced good kid. In small towns like Hawkins, you cross a certain street and it’s like a whole other world; divided between the shabby cabins and trailer parks with the so-called ‘town bums’ and the suburbian paradise the soccer moms and their nuclear families shielded themselves within.

The ringing of the phone interrupts Hopper’s thoughts, and he’s suddenly now aware of how he’s been studying the Mayfield file for so long that the red digits on the clock suddenly read 4:32 PM. He huffed out a long sigh before picking up the phone and pressing it to his ear.

“What d'ya got for me, Flo?”

“Mrs. Hargrove and her daughter are here. Should I send ‘em in, or are you still nursing that hangover?”

“Yeah, yeah, send ‘em down. . .smartass.”

. . .

Maeven missed her long hair.

As a child, she wanted nothing more than to have what she, Max, and her parents dubbed ‘princess hair.’ Rapunzel was always her favorite, and she had complained multiple times that the Walt Disney Company was yet to make a movie about her. But she always pictured herself being a wild princess who runs through the woods with leaves and twigs in her hair.

It took her a while to learn how to properly take care of it. She was always so sad when it had to be cut shorter; a result of her failed attempts to grow it out ending in a barrage of too many tangles and knots. After a few too many cuts than she was comfortable with, Maeven finally grew old and patient enough to settle into a good hair-care routine when she was around ten years old.

She loved having so many ways to flaunt her wavy red locks; ponytails, pigtails, braids, and buns. But her favorite way to wear it was to just let it flow down past her shoulders, below her breasts, stopping at the small of her back, so wild and free. Maeven loved the way her partners stroked or tugged on it whenever she was intimate with them. Billy once told her when he fucked her on his lap that running his hands through her hair felt like he was touching the setting sun.

Having Maeven’s hair draped across his body like a silk curtain was one of the only places he felt truly safe. Of course, he had never admitted it aloud to her. It was partially to keep up his tough reputation, but he also didn’t feel like he needed to tell her. Maeven already knew, he could tell. She was always good at reading him.

Maeven’s hair was always the first thing people noticed about her. It was the first thing they noticed about Max and their Mom, too. Besides the blue eyes and the freckles, it was the Mayfield ladies’ defining feature. It was why everyone was so disappointed when she cut it all off so suddenly. One night last February, she woke up from yet another nightmare, a flashback, that someone chased her, hunted her down like a wild animal, and caught her by her hair.

New Year's Eve, 1983 ruined a lot of things for her; parties, drugs, nighttime, and outside, just to name a few. But the worst part of it was no longer feeling safe in her own body. It was the feeling that she was no longer safe being herself. So, acting on sheer impulse and instinct, Maeven took the sewing shears from her mother’s craft room and hastily cut off her long ginger locks until her hair ended up choppy, just below her ears.

She wasn’t sure if she should’ve felt sad at what she had done to herself, or feel relieved now that the cause of her paranoia was severed from her head. All she did know was that she had one less thing to worry about; one less thing that people liked to take advantage of. She didn’t want to be hunted, anymore. She was a little bit safer. . .for now, Even though her emotions weren’t certain, she still cried her eyes out that night.

After letting it grow a bit and finally evening it out, Maeven did her best to embrace her new look. She just decided that she wasn’t going to look at herself in the bathroom mirror unless she absolutely had to brush her hair or put on makeup. It was easier that way; less painful. As the cold, autumn wind passed through Hawkins and made the back of her neck chill that she missed her former length the most. It helped that she never needed a scarf in the winter, as she could always use her hair to cover her neck.

Maeven scratched the back of her neck, running her fingertips over her hairline and short fuzz to soothe herself. She twirled her short locks around her finger and pulled hard; a not-so-healthy way to cure her boredom and keep her anxiety occupied. It was times like this she regretted cutting away her hair the most. The times when she wanted nothing more than to hide her face behind her firey red locks and just sink into herself.

She had slowly gotten used to the constant presence of police since her first arrest at fifteen and all the times that followed afterward. Whatever name you give them, cops, police, pigs, dicks, every officer of the law was different in their own way. Maeven had met maybe a handful of them who actually seemed concerned for her well-being and genuinely wanted to help her. That didn’t make their looming presence any less threatening to her. More often than not, they were the kind to attack first and ask questions later.

Since being discharged from inpatient psychiatric treatment, Maeven did her hardest to appear non-threatening and be on her best behavior, especially around the police. She steered clear of them. Even though she tended to steer clear of everyone these days, she avoided confrontation with police especially. With all the charges that had been brought against her in the years following her first arrest, Maeven knew that whatever was on her permanent record, it wasn’t a flattering portrayal.

The treatment program she went to maybe have helped her with a lot of her many mental issues, but Maeven still felt broken. Even if she recovered, she didn’t feel quite like a human again, and she secretly wished she could just change. It didn’t matter what or who. Honestly? She wouldn’t mind being a rock or a dying star, an animal or an insect. It wasn’t important to her. All that mattered was that she wouldn’t feel like this; being a human was a messy, painful merry-go-round of inconsistencies. It wasn’t worth it, anymore.

Maeven wasn’t sure exactly what was keeping her alive. She felt it getting stronger once they moved to Hawkins, and she was determined to find it. But, for now, her life would just be a mundane and painful routine of various medications, her many coping skills that ranged from healthy to unhealthy, visits with cops and therapists, and trying to stop herself from getting in her own way. It was working. . .slowly. But that's the thing about healing; it isn’t always linear.

She didn’t even hear the receptionist call to her and her mom until she felt her grab her hand in an attempt to bring her daughter along to, . .

“Wait. . .where are we again?” Maeven thought allowed, not even realizing it until her mom looked at her with wide eyes, a mixture of disappointment and concern. It hurt to look at.

“The Police Station, Maevey. You have a meeting, remember?”

Maeven said nothing, her brain still catching up with the rest of the world and the concept of time. She dug her sharply manicured nails into her palms, taking a moment to swallow her anxiety down before smiling and nodding at her mom.

“That’s right,” Maeven silently remembered. After the tour of the school, Neil dropped her and Susan off at the police station. Billy took Max to the arcade and he was no doubt killing time by using the back roads of Hawkins like his own personal race track.

“You were disassociating again, bitch,” the voice scolded.

As her mom gently tugged her along toward the Chief’s office, Maeven felt like the world around her was growing smaller. Technically it was; the walls narrowed as Susan led her down the hallway from the front desk. It wasn’t long at all, or even that narrow. But that’s how it felt.

Susan Hargrove, on the other hand, walked in front of her daughter like she owned the place. Another flaw of Neil’s that rubbed off on her. Maeven wasn’t sure if she should feel scared or safe. She hadn’t felt like she needed her mom’s guidance and protection since she was little. Were either of the Mayfield women themselves, anymore?

Her mom stood halfway through the threshold of the Chief’s office as Maeven mentally prepared herself to remain calm in front of him. This man had access to her file; a collection of her worst moments where she was decided to be bad by people who didn’t know her. He had the power to use everything in that file to make her life worse if he wanted to. It all depended on his impression of her, on whether or not she can do a good job convincing him that she wasn’t the person those documents painted her as.

“I take it you’re Mrs. . .Hargrove? I thought it was ‘Mayfield?’”

“That was my last husband’s name, Mr. Hopper. I remarried this year,” Susan promptly corrected him. Hopper’s eyebrows raised as his eyes narrowed.

“Another Suburban Soccer Mom. Go figure,” he thought to himself.

“Alright, then. C’mon in and have a seat, ladies. I don’t bite,” Hopper gestured to the chairs facing his desk.

“Yeah. You might not bite. But what about you, Maevey?”

Maeven didn’t acknowledge the voice this time but crossed her arms around her middle to hug herself.

She rounded the corner and looked at the Chief. Hopper looked like someone her dad would get along with. Not the sleazy, sexist drunk ones who hovered around him in San Francisco. Out of his police garb, Maeven predicted that he’d be someone’s dad or cool uncle who takes you fishing or cooks you a classic American breakfast. She took a seat next to her mother in her matching leather office chair. The urge to play with and pick at the tears and cracks was annoyingly strong.

Maeven sat so that both her hands were tucked under both her legs, hidden underneath her skirt. She didn’t want her mom to draw any more unnecessary attention to her fidgeting. That was embarrassing.

Hopper couldn’t help but stare at the nervous girl in front of him. She was definitely smaller than he expected, maybe because of the way she carried herself as if she was trying to disappear. No matter how many years he had under his belt as an officer, the cases that involved kids never got easier. In fact, they had only gotten more difficult in the last year. Between Will going missing in a whole nother goddamn dimension and suddenly becoming a parent to a girl again, Jim had a lot to adjust to, lately. And it seemed like he certainly wasn’t the only one.

This girl was too impossibly young to know grief this large. Yet, here she sits in front of him. And even if her files were up to date, Jim had his doubts. He knew that looks could be deceiving, but Margaret Mayfield didn’t look or act like a criminal, much less a bad person. There was just no way.

“So. . .what brings you in today?”

For once, Maeven decided not to count the stains on the carpet or the scratches on the Chief’s desk. Not that she wanted to talk to him, but she just didn’t want to be silent and awkward anymore. In the past, the cops she dealt with before interpreted her silence as a threat, or a confession of her guilt. And she left the school tour feeling oddly confident after meeting Nancy and Steve.

Of course, her mother just had to speak for her.

“My husband called in and spoke with your receptionist, Flora, to make sure you got my daughter’s file from Captain Daly down in San Diego. We just moved here, and we wanna make sure she has a. . .a good relationship with the law enforcement here so that she hopefully doesn’t repeat her past mistakes,” she explained, finishing with a smile on her face.

Susan grew a little too used to assuming Maeven’s feelings. It was fine at the beginning when she at least asked for her permission via a silent nod, but it was more often than not that she just took over and micromanaged the conversation.

“Well, now she just has to pay. Go on, now.”

“No, no, no. Please just stop. Please.”

It took a moment for Jim to process what just happened. He didn’t blame Susan’s daughter for looking at her the way she did, with such frustration and annoyance as she bounced her leg. The psychiatric evaluation in her file did say she suffered from anxiety. Hopper wouldn’t be surprised if this girl listed her mother as a stressor.

“Y’know, I’d actually prefer to speak with Margaret alone, if you wouldn’t minds, Mrs. Hargrove?”

The very thought of her mother leaving the room for a little while lowered the tenseness in Maeven’s shoulders and the air suddenly return to her lungs. She tried not to let it show too much, though. Her mother developed a tendency to notice the little changes whenever her mood fluctuated. No matter how infuriating Susan acted sometimes, the thought of hurting her feelings still broke the young girl’s heart to think about. It was both an impressive and scary hidden talent, like a lighthouse with a giant eye as the light.

“Maybe you should sketch that. It’d look cool,” the voice suggested. Maeven fought the urge to reach for her sketchbook. She could already see the picture in her mind’s eye.

Susan paused for a moment as she processed the Chief’s request.

“Oh. . .sure! Of course! No problem, I. . .” Susan stood up from the chair and placed her hand gently on her daughter’s shoulder. “I’ll just be waiting outside, okay?” she reassured, her eyes turning sad when she looked at her.

Maeven blinked away her idea for a moment to give her mom a half-smile.

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m fine,” she replied, her hand squeezing, then brushing her hand off her shoulder. Susan nodded before walking to the door.

“And it’s Flo, by the way. Not ‘Flora,’” Hop made sure to mention before she had a chance to close the door on her way out.

“Yes. . .of course,” Susan stuttered as she closed the office door. The silence that filled the room after it slammed wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable for once. In fact, it was oddly freeing.

“Thanks. I, uh. . .thank you,” Maeven squeaked out as she fidgeted with her hands just itching to reach for her backpack.

“No problem, kid,” Hopper chuckled before continuing. “My wife was the same way with me and my daughter. She just worries.”

Maeven said nothing, but nodded in understanding, making eye contact with the Chief for about two seconds before turning back to her lap. Hopper could already see that his theory about her being misunderstood in her reports proved to be correct already.

“So, Margaret. Or do you go by ‘Maggie?’” he asked

“No one calls me that,” she said softly. “It’s Maeven.”

Hopper’s eyes darted back to her file just out of her sight.

“Oh, your middle name. Alright. Sorry,” he reassured. But, again, Maeven said nothing.

“Okay, then. Well, welcome to Hawkins, first of all. You like it?”

“Yeah. It’s okay,” she muttered, bouncing her right leg while swinging the left.

“It takes a little getting used to,” Jim mentioned, continuing his attempt to coax this girl out of her shell. He couldn’t help her if she didn’t talk to him.

“Mmm-hmm. . .” Maeven nodded.

The Chief exhaled loudly through his nose in contemplation, suddenly noticing that her eyes were darting back and forth between her fidgeting hands and her backpack. What did she have in there that was so important? According to her file, Maeven could be nervous about drugs in her bag. Her behavior was, after all, common for a druggie, but Hopper didn’t think that to be the case. Still, he treads lightly.

“I see you eyeing your bag, there. Do you need something?”

Maeven’s eyes darted back to him for longer, this time, her demeanor that of a cornered animal unsure how to react.

“Sorry. Do you mind if I draw?” she asked, shaking her head as if to bring her back to herself.

“Draw? Why?” he asked.

“It, uhm. . .it helps with my restlessness and keeps me focused,” Maeven fumbled to explain herself, almost defensive about her hobby. Hopper shrugged.

“If you promise to answer my questions, I got no problem,” he admitted. He really didn’t care, just a little confused.

She gave him a soft smile before immediately reaching for her bag and pulling out a black sketchbook and a small pouch of pencils, pens, and markers. Swiftly, she turned to a fresh page and pulled out a red colored pencil.

“. . .thank you,” she muttered before getting to work.

“So. . .I got a call from Captain Daly all the way out in San Diego, and he filled me in on your. . .recent situation,” Hopper explained, pausing every so often to observe Maeven’s movements as she sketched. The way her hands moved the pencil across the page was random, both erratic and calm with no clear order or pattern, but still had a sort of rhythm.

“Apparently, you had quite a reputation with your school and the law back over in California?”

At the mention of her past, Maeven’s drawing hand came to a dead stop, as if her mind was somewhere else and had to adjust to his words in her own way.

“He knows, Maeven. He knows how insane you are. One toe out of line and he’ll have you sent to an asylum. And you know what’ll happen then, right? You’ll never be seen again.”

“. . .yeah, I guess so,” Maeven admitted, trying her best to swallow her obvious fear of Daly before going back to her sketch. She had finished the basic outline of the lighthouse from a bottom perspective, continuing to draw a giant, graphic eyeball in place of the searchlight.

“Doesn’t sound like you’re too proud about it,” Jim observed.

“I’m not. I never was,” she defended, moving on from the iris to the veins. “I’m the complete opposite, actually.”

She brought the leg she was once swinging up to sit on the chair, almost melting into it. He chuckled softly. Now she was starting to act like a kid her age should.

“Do me a favor and keep your boots off my chair, Maeven.”

He wouldn’t have said anything if he knew that the girl would suddenly switch moods and sit the way a mother would nag her child to.

“Oh! Yes! Sorry, sir,” she apologized.

Hopper mentally scolded himself. She was just started to get comfortable with him and he had to go and ruin it with his big mouth and closed-minded understanding of manners.

“Have you dealt with a lot of law enforcement before, kid?”

“I. . .I don’t have any intention of causing any trouble, Officer, I promise.”

It was clear to him now that Maeven didn’t have an ideal relationship with cops. No doubt due to Captain Daly and his officers. Some of the reports of arrests in her file indicated that she fought(as any other kid would do in her situation) and the officers weren’t exactly.

“It sounds like Captain Daly gave you some hard times. I’m not gonna blame an officer for doing his job, handling your investigation.”

“I know. I don’t either. I know I wasn’t the. . .easiest person to handle,” she confessed, now sketching slowly, moving on to add the details of the lighthouse.

Her attitude toward the situation was delightfully humble, but just as depressing. It was always tragic to see someone so young also filled with so much pain. Jim turned back to her file and skimmed over a couple more pages that mentioned how she gradually started getting into more and more fights throughout the second semester of her failed Junior Year.

“It says here that you’ve had some. . .bad luck with others. And that you’ve dealt with behavioral issues. But you’re on medication now and have been managing your impulses.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she nodded, not looking up from her page.

“That’s not something to be proud of, Maeven. You shouldn’t have to rely on pills to keep from hurting yourself and fucking everything with a heartbeat.” the voice scolded in her ear.

“I don’t do that,” she argued against it, shaking her head free of those thoughts.

Hopper looked at her list of medications on her medical records, including the trials and tribulations of finding the right pills that worked for her. It couldn’t have felt too good to have to take that many pills so often.

“So. . .why don��t you tell me what happened, Maeven? Tell me about yourself,” he suggested as she relaxed her shoulders and continued to sketch. Jim didn’t want to pry. Even if it’d been a while since her incident and recovery process, she was still clearly fragile about it.

Maeven shrugged as she finished coloring the red roof of the lighthouse.

“What is there to know? You have my file. You know exactly what I am,” she pouted. It was strange to Jim that she could switch from being a mature young lady to a frustrated child so easily and quickly.

“No. I can’t really say I do,” he gently argued with her. After pausing to take a look at her sketch so far, Maeven shut her book, tapping and scratching her nails against the cover.

“Look, I know that I haven’t made a lot of good choices in the last few years. I know I’m pretty crazy, too. And I know that’s not an excuse and you have no reason to believe me, Sir, but I’m very sorry and I don’t wanna get in any kind of trouble again, and I-”

The longer she talked, the more discombobulated her movements became, and the more frantic and anxious Maeven appeared to Hopper. Her leg shakes as the tapping of her nails on her notebook turned more rapid. It became clearer to him that when Mr. Hargrove called in to say this girl was extremely fragile, he wasn’t kidding.

“Woah, okay. Just calm down, kid. Enough with the formalities,” Hopper held out his hands as he spoke as if trying to show an abused house pet that he meant no harm; the act made Maeven suddenly realized she needed to breathe in between sentences.

“Stop calling me ‘sir,’ Maeven. ‘Makes me feel like a Grandpa,” he laughed, holding out his hand as he awaited a shake. “It’s Hopper. Jim Hopper. My friends call me ‘Hop.’”

“Okay, uhmm. . .Thank you, si-I mean Hop,” she tripped over her words as she accepted his offer for a friendly handshake. “Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Miss Mayfield.”

It had been a while since Maeven interacted with an adult this way; just a casual, friendly interaction between two fellow adults. The chief’s handshake was firm with respect and emanated a familiar warmth. It reminded her of her Dad.

“Don’t worry. I won’t make too big a deal about this. I won’t let your troubles follow you into Hawkins if that’s what you want. But that also depends on you and your choices from here on out, you understand?”

“I do, yes,” Maeven smiled, feeling a small sense of pride that she thought died on New Year’s.

“Thought so. You seem like a smart kid. Took a look at your grades from Newport. Said you almost broke some record at their school for scoring so high on the SATs.”

“Yeah. . .it’s not that big of a deal,” she laughed, humbling herself again as she looked down at her tapping nails on her sketchbook.

“It is in Hawkins, kid. Trust me,” Hopper playfully argued. He wasn’t exactly wrong, either. Even back when he went to High School, a lot of his graduating class was made up of jackasses that didn’t know their ass from their elbow. The more academic ones ended up leaving Hawkins for better opportunities. Joyce could’ve been one of those people, too. But she was happy where she was. That was the kind of future he knew Maeven could reach. She was too good for this place.

“Not a lot of our kids have that kind of potential. I’m sure you’re gonna be fine,” he finished.

Maeven wanted to accept his compliment, but the voice inside her wouldn’t let her.

“He’s lying to you. He’s just trying to be nice,” it taunted, disguising it as a warning, she was sure.

“So, we both know what your file says. But I wanna hear it firsthand. You wanna tell me about what happened to you?”

Again, Maeven could only speculate what was in that manilla folder. She remembered a meeting with Captain Daly and her mother where he slammed her case file on the table of the interrogation room. She couldn’t bare to look at it. It was painful enough watching Susan read it through the gasps and sobs. She was sure that reading it herself would tear her very soul apart more than it already had been.

“He already knows. Stop buying pointless time and just get it over with. It’ll be easier.”

Chief Hopper wasn’t Captain Daly, though. He wasn’t like any of the other police she dealt with in the past. The ones who blamed her for her fate and tried to turn her into the villain. The ones who didn’t hesitate to draw their weapons on her when they found her bleeding and begging for help in the forest.

No. Hopper was different. Maeven knew he couldn’t fully comprehend what she went through. She lived through what most people would find unimaginable. But Hopper at least had more empathy and a sense of emotional intelligence than any cop she’d crossed paths with.

“Uhm. . .I’d rather not, if that’s okay? Not yet, at least.” she asked, hoping her instincts were right, switching from tapping her sketchbook to scratching the back of her hands

Hopper frowned at the sight. Maeven’s nails were so sharp that her hands were red and threatening to break out in blood.

“I get it,” Hopper said to her. “It’s the first meeting. You’re a little on edge. I have you back here next Sunday, right?”

At the sound of his voice, Maeven ceased her scratching.

“Mmm-hmm,” she nodded, letting out a sigh of relief at his understanding. Hopper returned her nod before handing her a slip of paper he had just signed; a weekly attendance sheet that she would eventually show to her mom and Neil so they’d know she was ‘improving.’ She would probably get another one from the school counselor tomorrow.

“Just focus on getting yourself adjusted to Hawkins for the next seven days and then we can talk about your. . .situation,” Jim told her, once again treading lightly.

“I can do that,” Maeven agreed, tucking the piece of paper beneath the cover of her sketchbook.

“Alright, kid. You’re dismissed,” the chief said with a small wave of his hand. “Besides, I’m sure your mom’s probably anxious not having you around,” he joked, sure of himself that he wasn’t overexaggerating.

Maeven slipped her book and pencils back into her backpack before zipping it shut, scrambling out of her seat as she walked towards the door and pulled the knob. Before exiting, she took one last look at the Chief, still glancing at her file.

“Officer Hopper?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. I. . .I really appreciate it,” she stuttered out.

“Anytime, Maeven,” Jim smiled back at her. As he watched her leave his office, he couldn’t help but be reminded of the little girl who awaited his return at his cabin in the woods. El and Maeven would get along well.

. . .

A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter coming out. I had to split it up so it wouldn't be too long. That doesn't necessarily mean that I don't like writing chapters at a longer length, but 20-25 pages is my comfort zone. I usually start by just outlining a chapter with all the dialogue I want to include and build the actions and descriptions around that.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! The next one shouldn't take as long as this one did as I already have all the dialogue written out for it. I'm writing both chapters five and six at once. Please be sure to leave some kudos and comments, as they are my lifeblood and are incredibly helpful whenever I need inspiration. I'm glad that people seem to be resonating with Maeven. She's definitely the hardest I've worked on when it comes to all the characters I've created over the years.

The Spitifre Curse Taglist:

@yaidothat

Let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist!

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gryficowa · 2 months

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While reading wiktuba, I came across information that iiluminaughii is of Polish origin and it strangely makes sense (I'm from Poland, so I have more experience to say what typical Polish behavior looks like)

I am Kashubian (25% I am French, but it has nothing to do with my identity, unless the fact that I like croissants has something to do with it)

Unfortunately, being a terrible person is often seen among typical Poles (There are supposedly more nicer people, but there is no madness, because boomers and fans of conservatism still exist, and they are very prejudiced against various groups, and when they see someone standing in defending them, they will call you stupid and inexperienced (You know, that you are mature when you hate Jews, Ukrainians and other social groups)

So you can see that Blair's roots are stronger than her common sense...

Coming back, unfortunately, a lot of her behavior is so Polish, her treatment of people, abusing someone in the past and present, etc…

Poles have too big an ego, if you say something bad about him and you are not from Poland, he will be outraged, or he will tell you to get the fuck out of Poland (God damn it, I'm a Kashubian and they tell me to get the fuck out if I don't like it, yes, I have to get the fuck out of Poland my lands because I criticize Poland)

So yes, it's true that Balir doesn't like movies where they talk about her harmful behavior and gives them an extension, it sounds even more Polish when I know her origins and that's disturbing

So yes, this information turned into something that now sounds too familiar to me, to a person who has lived in this country since birth and saw how Poles have a pain in the ass about everything (But criticize their racism, they will laugh at you)

So yes, Poles have learned little about the history of the Holocaust, because they are doing everything to make it Holocaust 2.0

#iiluminaughii #poland #Blair White #youtube

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beetlebrownleaf · 1 year

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big vent. things I’m in a better place to talk about now that I’ve seen a therapist for a little while. mentions of BPD and emotional manipulation under cut.

I decided to say “fuck it” and come back to Twitter because I want to talk to my fucking friends there before it possibly implodes, and I’m scared because I feel like I’m constantly under a microscope everywhere ever since an ex friend pressured me to stay off of social media cold turkey (not possible for me anyways. nothing cold turkey works for me) because they considered me “mentally unsound” and basically tried to armchair diagnose me because I was being interpersonally shitty to them.

And then they kicked me out of their space when I didn’t comply to said socmed break that they imposed upon me “for my own good”. Yes I was being an asshole, genuinely, but it felt so controlling and weird. As I look back I think they’re just a controlling person. Was I an asshole? Yes. Were they still weirdly controlling in a gross, patronizing way? Also yes. Both can be true.

My first red flag should have been when they asked me how I get my kids to eat more vegetables. I assumed they were babysitting. No. They just invasively thought their roommate wasn’t eating healthy enough I told them that was ultimately not their problem nor their business.

I was an asshole for getting up their ass about a comment they made that I simply disagreed with, I should have just left it alone because it wasn’t worth it. Yes. I was an asshole for that.

But if you hear rumors I’m a secret closeted bigot and I supposedly think those seeking education and employment is “mindless drone behavior”, hi that was me in my private vent twitter, aka my “this is where my bad brain thoughts that do not necessarily represent my beliefs and feelings”, saying, in a moment of deep mental upset, that I felt like being queer, becoming socially aware, choosing my own lifestyle, and making other queer friends, brought me pain and sometimes I wish I’d have married that lawyer I didn’t love and gone to a school I didn’t want to go to and gotten that job I didn’t want to have to please my parents because it would have “easier”.

Having times where you wish you were not queer and blissfully socially unaware is an incredibly common Bad Brain Thought for queer people. I am not a fucking bigot for that*. I don’t fucking think education and employment are “mindless drone behavior”. I was wishing, in a moment of mental upset, that I was a mindless drone, aka, someone who just did what their parents told them to do with their lives. When I explained this I was met with a resounding “I don’t believe you, it’s clear you’re still a deeply bigoted religious person and not the liberated woman you claimed to be” as if it’s my fault I failed to live up to expectations I absolutely never gave any impression of. I did escape a more “worldly” form of Evangelicalism. I did not stop being religious. Being queer and being religious are not mutually exclusive.

Anyone who has known me since my fucking beginning here on FFXIV, on Tumblr, even on Twitter, knows that’s bullshit, and from here on out I’m deciding that anyone who believes that is willfully choosing to believe that to make me more of an asshole than I actually am and I want nothing to do with them.

Basically when I was mad at a comment I perceived as rude (which was, by the way, a comment telling me me and my family’s hypothetical desire for land to farm and garden on - possibly elsewhere in the South, where I inescapably live unless I move several states away, which is financially unfeasible and separates us from family) - was selfish, unnecessary, and placing my children in direct social and physical harm, so, actually I still think it was fucking rude), I was mentally unsound for being mad at that. And maybe so, I really was an asshole for getting all twisted about it and coming after people for it and I should not have done that, and I know the anger and discomfort I had about it did make me too mentally unsound to speak with them at the time. Fine. I’ll take that L.

But when I make a tweet on my bad brain account that yeah, isn’t worded excellently because it’s where I go to privately vent when I’m upset, aka Mentally Unsound, it’s suddenly an indication of my deep-seated true Closeted Bigot Feelings? Yeah. Okay. Just say I’m an asshole and go tell me to fuck myself like a decent person.

My therapist is pretty sure it is possible that I have BPD after I mentioned it to them. I am financially unable to see her now (my husband’s job changed insurance and we’re not covered anymore, and I can’t afford $100 a week or even every two weeks, so yay), so I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m glad to know I at least have a path moving forward.

She thinks this is why I kept folding to this friend and going “okay okay I’ll do what you say, you’re right, I was so wrong and thank you so much for your input, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen that I was making a bad decision”. And I am sickened that I did fold because they said “well I’m glad I was able to save your children, at least, I would go through this again and again to save your precious children” fuck off. I can’t believe I let them say that to me.

I can’t do that anymore. I can’t just fold to people because I’m afraid of rejection. I can’t allow myself to be manipulated like that anymore or anyone could harm and take advantage of me, and that really could impact my children’s lives negatively.

I am not going to bend to manipulation anymore, and I am going to allow “I was a shitty person to someone” (because I was! even my therapist said it was a harmful and unhealthy thing to do on my part) and “but this someone was also shitty to me and I am allowed to be hurt by it, and they are wrong about who I am” to coexist.

I’m still scared to exist online because I feel like I’m under a microscope and anything will be used against me, and rightfully so. But I’m not going to disappear to appease anyone. I am not going to adhere to some forced promise that I’ll stay off socmed and stop having fun with my friends.

*addendum: I am not a bigot but I am white and squarely middle class and I understand that may mean I still have things to unlearn as far as racism and classism, and many other forms of bigotry, I would imagine. I am not perfect. But I am not a bigot.

#vent

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thebumblecee · 1 year

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„The one thing i’m not enjoying this season is the amount they bring up carbs and the carbs are bad rhetoric.“ Yes! Thank you for bringing this up because it’s something that’s bothering me sooo much! They had a few mentions in the seasons before but never like this. Plus in their case it’s absolutely ridiculous because most of them work a physically demanding job and they work out regularly so they need fuel to sustain. They cannot diet and they don’t need to. It irks me the way they play into whole bad food/good food culture. It can be so harmful because some people actually believe it and don’t eat right. And Tommy’s comment made me so mad. Her character is a paramedic captain she should know better. A few treats don’t made you fat.. ugh.. sorry for my rant. I have just a lot of thoughts about the whole diet culture and the way media handles it. (Don’t get me started that only a certain body type is supposedly healthy and attractive!) But I am very glad that I am not the only one who doesn’t like it.

Don’t apologise for ranting! I love a good rant! Always here to listen to a rant.

From now on discussion of ED and disordered eating

It’s one of the first things I’ve noticed about this season and it’s also one of the biggest overarching themes I’ve noticed and I do not like it. They’ve always been food centred but this is the first time it’s seen as negative.

At first I was wondering if they were doing an ED storyline or hinting at one but now I think they’re just being careless and thinking things like oh ho ho don’t eat that it’s BAD is so ingrained in media/Hollywood that they doesn’t even notice what they’re saying as wrong.

They’re giving an ED eating habits and I don’t think they’ve noticed? TK only eating when his partner is around is one. Only eating keto/paleo/other is one. Obsessing over weight. Obsessing over fats in food.

It’s all very very irritating if they’re not going to take it seriously.

NB: food is never bad for you. Give your body what it needs. Fats are essential. Life is about moderation sure, but not feeding yourself is as bad as overdoing it.

#cee speaks #ask #tw: ED #tw: food

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corvinearcher · 2 years

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I love Equius and I wish we'd gotten to see more of him! The thing that really fascinates me is that he's supposedly the troll who's most bought into the caste system, but in terms of the actual harm he does others, he's the least violent of all the highbloods—despite textually having a huge temper that he constantly struggles to control. Actually, out of all the beta trolls, there are only two who have never tried to kill another troll—Karkat and Equius.

His worldview is incredibly screwed up, but when you take into account that he genuinely has that worldview, his actual actions toward others are pretty benevolent. He is horrifyingly controlling towards Nepeta and Aradia, but he's surprised and distressed when he realizes he's not acting in their best interest (e.g. when Aradia is angry about the chip).

He does the things he thinks he's supposed to. He tries really hard not to hurt others, and mostly succeeds. He's got a long way to go, but if he hadn't been murdered at 6 sweeps he could have had plenty of time to get there.

D -- > OH MY GOD I COULD NOT HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF listen I literally love equius so much, and we got two second of content and it pisses me off! Not to mention trying to find any fan content that doesn't make him a fucking joke is INSANE.

D -- > But like his character is so much more complex than people make him out to be. I mean one interesting thing for example, is the fact that Darkleer ruined his own life sparing Deciple. And Equius and Nepeta are THE example for meowrails!! BRAZY. AND LIKE, OHMMAAGOSH his whole thing with the hemospectrum I could go ON and WHAT MAKES ME MAD ALSO IS THAT EVERY BODY THINKS HE'S A WEIRDO CREEP. BUT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND HEEE DOESNT UNDERSTAND AHHHHH

D -- > Like his whole thing with strength which is super interesting to get into, has a reason. Age, strength, hormones, troll insanity IT ALL COMES TOGETHER. HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HIMSELF AN NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE AHH. Also almos nobody talks about the bot fighting he CASUALLY JUST DID ALL THE TIME. OH OH ALSO LIKE THE HEMOSPECTRUM SHIT, THE ONLY TIMES HE'S INDULGED IN IT AFFECTING OTHER IS EITHER WHEN 1: he's talking to gam gam (LOVE THEM) and 2: when he thought he was doing the right thing for aradia and 3: protecting the shit out of Nepeta GOING AGAINST WHAT EVERY FUCKING CELL IN HIS BODY IS TELLING HIM. HE'S CONSTANTLY THINKING HE'S ABOVE EVERYONE AND EVERYONE HAS AN ORDER BUT HE GOT SO MUCH BETTE WITH IT FOR THE TWO SECOND WE HAD WITH HIM!!!

D -- > Like, specifically his lineage, take Darkleer. The starter of it. He was directly under the Grand High blood. Obviously they would've been somewhat close, cause sure GHB had other trolls like thr pyropes to catch and decide the fates of certain trolls, but he had DARKLEER killing them. He had HIM doing all of the big shit. CMON. So that constant odlreer to order worship to worship regulation obviously fucked some shit up. And so now with equius, of course he's going to be obsessed with th hemospectrum, of course he's obsessed with gam gam, BECAUSE LOOK AT DARKLEER SIMPING LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. (Worded funny, comic effect I swear XD)

D -- > This is why I'm a Zahhak lover because theyr so much more complex than a few of the mos popular characters. We could read into the zahhaks for hours but since he's not that big of a character, NO ONE DOES AN I'M SAD. I JUST WANT EQUIUS FAN ART THAT ISN'T MAKING FUN OF HIM. HUSSIE PLAYED FAVORITES AND EQQY WAS AT THE FUCKING BOTTOM >:'(

D -- > I'm so sorry this is so long I just fucking LOVE talking about Equius to anyone who will listen >:D

#homestuck #homestuck equius #equius zahhak

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etherealsign282 · 1 year

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"it doesn't excuse the behavior, just explains it". But does it need to be explained in that moment? Are you explaining it to your therapist, psychiatrist, social worker, any peacekeepers? Are you saying it when someone asks why, or questions you?

Or are you just saying it to the person you hurt every time they're upset with you and want an apology/ changed behavior? In the hopes they feel something for you that isn't the justifiable hurt that they feel, and the expectation for you to do better that usually follows after? Are you explaining it or are you trying to excuse your behavior as not being harmful because you've been harmed? Because you won't tell this to literally anybody except the bleeding hearts who will forgive and enable you no matter what.

Sometimes people don't want the method in which you used to feel like hurting them in that moment was okay, explained to them. Some just want you to understand where they're coming from, and for you to understand that it was morally unjust of you. It's a strawman argument to try and make it about yourself, how YOUR brain works, how YOU feel, how YOU grew up with some sort of trauma that in the end "made" you traumatize someone, how YOU struggle, etc, without even listening first to them or acknowledging their pain.

The only thing some people want to hear within the moment of hurt is how YOU'RE gonna fix YOUR behavior *now* after YOU hurt THEM, not dwell on why it happened in the first place.

You might call it apathetic or insensitive that they don't want to shift the conversation to you and discuss your feelings, but I call it apathetic and insensitive to immediately take up someone's emotional space, while they are hurting and wanting to communicate THEIR feelings and needs, and try to shift the conversation in on some past pain of yours to "explain" what they might not want explained.

(And whatever excuse/reason you have for why you think that's how people communicate, i guarantee the other person has the same reasoning for why they didn't shift the conversation to you but rather kept talking/ wanting to talk about their needs. You dont get to turn the conversation about your sad shit and then get mad when they want to stick to *their* sad shit. If you want the communication to go "both ways", you have to actually act like the person you expect, which includes listening first. If you're not willing to be receptive and want to just go right to "explaining" the behavior, they don't owe you to "meet halfway" which is really meeting 3/4ths of the way, and start discussing you on top of not even finishing discussing themselves, while you haven't even said anything about their situation except whatever you think will lessen the blow to YOUR ego.)

You got enough self awareness to shove in everyone's face the reasons why you supposedly are the way you are, to beat them to the punch when they try to make you face your actions; but not enough self awareness to already be past that step for the 500th time this month (let alone possibly years of doing it), and delve into what you can *do* about it. Other than repeat yourself and expect something else other than people's resentments toward you.

That's all I had to say.

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asknarashikari · 1 year

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just read the dreaming of canon scenarios... what if the SOL dreamt of the events of Trio of Deep Sin? how would they react? [can you do the canon route and the with ise as the dragon son route? its okay if you just want to one instead of two]

Hmm... well I think they'd be pretty disconcerted at the lengths the titular trio went to just to get "revenge" on the swordsmen, especially considering that their grudges basically just amount to them being mad for something that's both not their fault and also totally impossible anyway. Having powerful swords and magic pocketbooks doesn't change the fact that they can't save everybody, that they're only human and can only do so much to stop evil.

I think Rintaro would be especially disturbed by the man claiming to be his father- after all, what sort of loving father would erase him from the lives of his other loved ones (and vice versa) and make his kid's existence solely dependent on his own? That's just straight up abuse, man. He'd probably be glad he never met his sperm donor and would acknowledge that his master was his true father.

Kento... I think he'd just feel sorry for Yuina, even if she basically lied to him during "their relationship". He of all people knows the lengths people would go to for the ones they love (cough emo potato sack coat idiocy era cough). He'd be pretty embarrassed by the way he proposed to her though, lol.

I think Touma would have the most complicated feelings about it given that Mamiya/Riku was supposedly his kid. On one hand, his life got upended and he lost everything he cared about- his friends, his family, his life's work and dreams, and even his effing dog- for absolutely nothing. Mamiya's grudge was literally just a misremembered memory.

Sure, it got "fixed" in the end, but at what cost?

On the other hand... he probably wouldn't be able to hate Mamiya/Riku even if it did happen, because in his heart of hearts he knows he could never hate a child he calls his own, even one that destroyed his life. He would probably rather accept his fate than harm his own kid, especially if it's just him that was hurt. (Which, of course, complicates his feelings further since Mamiya's actions affected all the swordsmen.)

#kamen rider saber #kamiyama touma #shindo rintaro #fukamiya kento #trio of deep sin #ask #hxmxbros

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unproduciblesmackdown · 1 year

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it's not about that you "have" to get to exercise your autonomy. b/c like, yes you do, but not in the way that "if i don't get to do that Now i will explode & evaporate (& die)" which is what people keep leveraging to be like "so you don't have any valid argument for getting to act out your own choices"

therein is another issue of "why do you need a 'valid argument' to get Exceptions as ruled by this person to exist autonomously, unpunished" like why's this person an authority who gets to punish you. nonrhetorically, why do you have to appeal to their maybe possibly deciding to Let you be a person. should you "have" to.

and if you don't get that Permission that you supposedly "have" to get, you also will not immediately explode and die if you do that unpermitted thing, but shocking how "you don't Haaaave to" is only invoked re: things you want to do for yourself, and not what they want you to do for them....because it's Not Really About "Literally literally Haaaaving to"

the alignment between people getting on one for years about asexuality, and while doing so maxing out the saturation on their bullshit on any & everything, b/c you're just getting into anti autonomy, so ofc you're also just stoking & expressing "arguments" against autonomy that are deployed in plenty of other contexts, including against other queer identities....and that particular resonance with biphobia & transphobia, and how either groups are theoretically thwarting the Truest Gays because how will we have a valid argument against the truest cishets agenda if we can't convince them we haaaaaave to be like this instead of that no, we won't explode & die if we have to be repressed or at least closeted another day, and another, and you won't explode after another, either, etc. rather than thee point of "asexuality autonomy = queer autonomy = Your queer autonomy = Anyone's Autonomy" and "why do we 'have' to Convince anyone to go 'oh alriiiight' abt one's choices about how they express their identity, what decisions they make about having sex"....it's about anyone having the power to preclude & restrict others' autonomy & constrain their existence between one kind of more imminent, immediate harm/death & a more drawn out one where you exist as a resource for others' use but at least you aren't Literally dead today. so what if someone's saying "well i don't think your gender/sexuality stuff is Real" so long as they can't get in the way of other people living that out anyways. so what if someone's supposedly like "well, but everyone could be bi" (which they don't. just like ppl were never 'pretending' to be asexual to nefariously stand around in the queer space that never rigorously vetted everyone anyways? Making Up A Guy To Get Mad At) to supposedly argue that if all of you are bi you can just restrict yourself to the Cishet Appearing manifestations (which they don't) where what's that even matter if this [guy to get mad at] can't make that anyone else's problem? if he can, why can he. should he be able to. that's the problem, not "have we all tried the constant biphobia wherein they're always thwarting & sabotaging the rest of us?? like how trans people are keeping us from being legitimate?? with the opportunity for some trans people to also try declaring other noncis people Not Legitimately Trans?? well the cishet agenda loves asexuals, actually, they want everyone to never have sex ever (they don't want that, and that's not what being asexual is)"

using the "you can't Know through Direct Perception or extrasensory phenomena what someone else's Thoughts And Feelings are" both ways; wherein their assertion of their intentions, true or not, gets to be treated as an assertion of Reality, meanwhile b/c Your intentions/thoughts/feelings can't be directly observed, you're just lying or exaggerating or misremembering or failing to Express yourself correctly b/c they would've surely interpreted it correctly otherwise, or [anything else] re: your inner experiences that you can't "prove" are one way or another, so this other person gets to always decide for themself what they must be (why?) and if they just so happen to decide they Must be in alignment with what they want (good) or unacceptably, evilly, incorrectly Against Them, they also get to flex their control over the entire situation via their Authority / control over resources / the person's lack of other options b/c of isolation & that, say, breaking away from a family, job, marriage or just deemed correctly romantic relationship, is punished by the larger system of How Things Are, through a lack of resources that makes you more vulnerable in general as well as vulnerable to further punishment in how you might try to respond to that situation, through the general stance that maintaining cohesion of a Unit like the nuclear family, the "romantic" "man"/"woman" couple, is good, so breaking from it is deviant........anyways it's like. if you're like "well i'm having sex b/c i want to" and someone is like "well i say YOURE LYING" like, what? "isn't there someone you forgot to ask" shit. why should that get to affect things. whether you're like "oh no. what if they could say 'you're lying...b/c how do i knowwww you're not BI. where you could want to have sex with someone BESIDES this one person rn?? or ACE??? if you Don't have sex rn and you Don't explode and die 5 min later we will Know you Could Be Asexual" like, this isn't how it works anyways obviously but theoretically if it did: we would not be like "oh sorry guess that's what matters" unless what mattered was some people's being lower on a hierarchy and at the quite literal disposal of those with more power than them. what would the crisis be of someone going "well i think. every gay person? is bi" or someone going "you've just told me your name is gloria but i think your name is actually tetris...." or "i'm so embarrassed i wish everyone but me was dead" if none of these things can hinder the existence of people having sex w/autonomy for all involved or people getting to tell you their name or all other people being alive

the banger quote on my imdb page was saying "no, i don't 'Have' to, but i'm going to" to an authoritarian in my life, concluding several minutes' "negotiation" of [i 'have' to hang up on this call now b/c the movie i'm standing in this movie theater to see is about to start. no i won't explode and die if i don't. i also won't explode and die if i don't keep "talking" to you (being Talked At / lectured & upbraided from afar)] funny how that works. i also Know this was a checkmate b/c that person gave up on responding (or, technically, switched to The Silent Treatment, which worked even worse via phone than in person) and i did hang up rather than miss the movie i showed up for and then they had to resort to Other Methods: telling someone willing to take on the enabling cop mode that i had Essentially said Go Fuck Yourself. like well that's right, and the fact that it's a "go fuck yourself" to get to say "i am going to end the call b/c i choose to do something else" and then actually do so is a real testament to this relationship. and if one had said "i can't keep talking, i have to go" and someone's like "sldfj you mean thou MAY not keep talking" teehee i don't know, CAN you have the peas????? it's like this obviously doesn't matter. i can choose to do shit and choose to not do shit without exploding and dying right this very second, except for taking 5 sec to eat a deadly bomb with a timer set for 5 sec. This Is Not The Point. why is autonomy off-limits to Anyone.

#authoritarian parent whose silent treatments fail: anti crossdressing household law will get everyone to stop inconveniently Being People #spoilers: i continue to be a real life person; nonbinary; autistic; i continue to not engage in a relationship w/that parent b/c #Their choice was to have that relationship be the authority & the property. so the response to that: not being in that situation.#creating that kind of relationship & then being like ''why don't i get the Benefits of a different kind of relationship that is defined by #everyone being recognized as people and having actual positive experiences and legitimately Wanting to interact :(''#the autonomy to Not do something b/c you don't want to = the autonomy to Totally do something b/c you do want to #hence the idea of the True / Ideal Homosexual being ''but i Must Only have gay sex or i'll explode & die'' vs ''i feel like having gay sex'#yeah we ''could'' all be forced into binary genders & nuclear family units & be miserable & isolated but not literally explode.#but why should we. why would we. why can't we Not do that #hence as well that queer autonomy=everyone's autonomy. ppl who id as cishet? don't need to be Forced into that or into Awful Marriage Asap #but they do if we wanna isolate everyone / eliminate broader social support networks / restrict the autonomy to do anything else #asexuality handshake bisexuality. parallel to aromanticism handshake polyamory #and the backup to ''well but you won't literally die'' is to preclude Choice entirely by diverting the focus from [questioning ur choices]#to [questioning whether you have the capacity to make choices] as an extension. lens on ableism / disability justice is in Everything #not in like a ''huh. who'd've thought that overlapped'' Fun Fact way but in [you don't Understand that issue fully if you don't see ableism #someone's always getting to justify their authority by their Superior Ability vs others' Inferior/Absent Ability #saw that zany ''radical queer theory based on vibes is now that asexuals aren't queer'' streak definitely manifest ableism #a good ol fashioned ''asexuals won't consider What's Wrong With Them / try harder to seek some conversion therapy'' great stuff gang #or even more useless declarations of ''haha but most people Aren't ace. it's not Normal to not want to have sex. checkmate?''#and what is your conclusion to that logic? ended up in ''ace ppl. are cringe!! & maybe not real!!!'' aaand what do we do with that?#what praytell do you suggest change based on that. how has that exclusionist analysis served queer lives. how is it continuing to do so.#versus like and who cares if everyone Could possibly all be labeled bi if what is In Practice anyways is ppl getting to have sex or Not how #they want to anyways. recognizing that Any trans person's existence is a testament to Everyone's autonomy #any ''threat'' to children is always guaranteed abt the Threat to [parents' control to decide Who & What a child gets to be]#that is; ''protecting'' children is abt the child being the property of parents. gotta protect That by withholding all info about trans ppl #even existing from kids b/c Property can't decide their identities for themselves so Children can't be allowed to either #their even knowing that some people Do get to exist autonomously is; indeed; that ''threat'' to the [child is property] order #and Language as Possibility. it's the 2010s & you can only go ''that's me i'm nonbinary'' when you learn abt the word ''nonbinary''#even though you can then know you always knew but you didn't have the word so you had to keep on using other; more inaccurate words....#discovering the tree trunk of [word: Autistic] that roots all these branches of ppl talking abt Experiences & now Realizing Things....

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