#but it's a whole other thing to *choose* emotional detachment and abuse | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mothwingwritings · 7 months

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C and D for hekuta doyler!! >:3

Aye aye! (￣^￣)ゞAfter months of working on these I am in the home stretch. Sorry they have been coming so late, thank you all for your boundless patience and for just being all around lovely. <3

Warnings: Doyle is a huge asshole, mentions of sex (non and dubcon) and emotional, mental, and physical abuse. Kidnapping and being held against your will, too. Please be mindful!

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Being with Doyle is a state of constant whiplash-you never know what you are going to get with him at any given moment. One minute he’s cold and calculating, watching your every move as he picks you apart and lashes out at the smallest indiscretion. Everything you do is wrong, you are a useless idiot, how were you even able to survive so long on your own with how brainless you are? You should count his intervention as a blessing really, if he hadn’t scooped you up on the street who knows how long your dumbass would have survived out there.

Then the next minute he couldn’t care less about you. It’s like you don’t have a presence, as if you’re just a phantom haunting his walls. You can actively seek him out, speak to him, touch him even, and he’ll ignore it all. He’ll give you the cold shoulder, shoot you a warning glare, or if you get annoying enough, slap you away-but he won’t talk to you. In these instances there is no acknowledgment of your existence at all, which is more dehumanizing than any of the other abuse he throws your way. When he wants you, you exist. When he doesn’t, you are nothing. Everything is based on his whims.

To Doyle your whole life is a mockery, your existence something to sneer at and lord over. You are his pretty piece of property, making your sole purpose on this planet to bring him entertainment in whatever form he deems fit.

It’s maddening. If he is so detached from you, why did he kidnap you? If he can’t stand you, why keep you forced in his company? You live in a constant state of dread, unsure if you will wake up to an abusive tyrant who will assault you the moment you open your eyes, or a flippant jerk who doesn’t have the decency to acknowledge you are even alive, let alone feed you or take care of your basic needs.

But the absolute WORST is the rare instance he tries to show ‘affection’. His hands trailing down your sides leave goosebumps in their wake, his mouth teasing and biting as feverish lips latch painfully to your neck. Sex with him is just as much of a whirlwind as the rest of your ‘relationship’. He could be jackhammering away at your poor abused body, littering your skin with bruises and cuts while he’s consumed in his lust, only to moments later be handling you so gently it was as if you were made of porcelain. Each moment of intimacy is a venture into unknown territory, bliss and despair, pleasure and pain mingling in a dangerous dance for dominance with each encounter.

You don’t know what disgusts you more, that he forces himself upon you without a second thought, hurting and violating you in every way imaginable until he has had his fill, or that he knows all the right things to do to your body to coax pleasure from you while he’s doing so.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Doyle has very little regard for your opinions and feelings-everything he does is for his pleasure and satisfaction alone. If he wants to kiss you, he’ll do it. If he wants to fuck you, he’ll do it. If he’s in a mood and needs to take out his anger and frustration on something, you are the perfect outlet. His attention is never something you take pleasure in, he knows this and chooses to disregard it. You belong to him now and he can do whatever he wants with you, to hell with anyone else’s opinion (yours included). It would be more out of character for him to actually take your desires into consideration then for him to not just do with you as he pleases. Should you try to impose your will on him in anyway he’ll give you a merciless reminder, quickly and efficiently nipping any thoughts of defiance in the bud.

You have very little say in just about every aspect of your life with him. From what you wear to how and when you sleep, none of it is truly in your control. If you get too cold you have to beg for a sweater or a blanket. Not satisfied with the amount of food he gives you? He’ll only accept ‘favors’ for anything extra (if he even follows through after you perform them). Any choice you have while in his possession is an illusion, every option always boiling down to ‘give him what he wants or face the consequences’.

So you can cry and protest all you want, beg and plead and even try to negotiate with your unflappable captor, he simply doesn’t care. All of the wallowing and supplicating is part of his amusement, and you do it so well! He doubts you understand just how hot your tear stained cheeks and quivering bottom lip makes him, you don’t realize the rush of excitement he gets when you get on your knees and cling to his leg, staring up at him with big watery eyes. Sniveling beneath him is the ideal place for you, and if you have any ounce of self-preservation you’ll be a good little pet and continue to do as he says and accept his authority. Otherwise, you better get used to pain darling~

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divorcemotif · 1 month

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this is going to be kind of all over the place but I wanna look at how martin conceptualizes his loyalty to jon specifically in like, the changing contexts of the later seasons, ig. of all the fucked up martin thesis statement moments in mag 170, "always following, never leading" and how it's placed as a foundational part of his self-conception—within the structure of the episode & dream logic of the house—is the one that’s haunted me the most I think. this episode is in the context of his whole willful ignorance & rejection of choice thing going at this part of the show; he refuses to listen to the statements, or hear about his domain, or make the decision about going into jude’s domain when jon offers it to him directly. and his avoidant tendencies are central to the logic of this episode; the slipping away is enabled by his not wanting to examine things—about himself, about the world—because it’s easier.. “maybe the fog’s here because I want it here”; running away from another person in the house when trying to connect gets too difficult & overwhelming. and then his mantra at the climax of this episode sees him assuring himself that jon will find him, not that he will find jon; although getting out of the fog in this episode ends up being pretty textually thanks to his own willpower rather than jon’s abilities, framing jon as the active agent is what he always does.

it’s this interesting dynamic where “never leading” as an identity maybe isn’t something he likes about himself, but it’s something he’s resigned to, which he frames as intrinsic, and which he’s continually choosing in a lot of subtle ways. if he’s always fundamentally secondary and unimportant—to jon, relatively, to the universe—then there’s no responsibility for him to carry; he doesn't need to dwell on things that are uncomfortable. from a detached bystander's position he can freely make suggestions and criticize jon’s decisions, while evading responsibility for anything that actually happens. but of course, jon being the only vessel through which he has any power to interact with the world or gain information leaves him no influence further than what jon is willing to humour him—and jon is certainly ready to do things martin does not want him to do (or not do things which martin does want him to do) where their convictions diverge. for his own reasons, he can be as selective about what he tells martin as martin is evasive in what he asks.

there’s a pivotal emotional shift in the transition from s4 to s5 and the catharsis at the end of 159, where in a sense martin goes from one extreme to another—from isolating himself and cutting jon out to accepting dependence on jon pretty absolutely, in ways that are exacerbated by the context of the fear apocalypse. but ofc in another sense it’s consistent; even if his decisions in season 4 were made in isolation and jon wasn't involved—or was even actively opposed to them—everything martin did was still about jon somehow, ideologically, which is what doesn’t change going into season 5. the idea he expresses multiple times, in 170 and in season 4, that he’s been alone on a fundamental level his whole life (the line “it’s just me. always has been” in 158 actually connecting his loneliness to the independence of his motivations, wrt his betrayal of peter lukas) is not a contradiction with the idea that he’s always been “following”; the incredibly isolating experience of being his abusive mum's carer having made caring for others—commitment, loyalty—something he’s practiced at doing from an emotional distance, and he’s not used to navigating a reciprocal relationship at all (when they're together martin's selective about sharing his insecurities with jon while expecting jon to make a constant effort to be more vulnerable with him, and doesn’t seem to register this hypocrisy).

and like, from the early seasons most of the major things he does for jon—running into the tunnels in 79; staying with him in the storage closet in 39; returning to carlos vittery's basement in 22, if that counts; generally bringing him tea and pestering him to eat—were always based more in his own ideas of what jon needed/would respond to, than anything jon was or was not asking of him (jon was not singling him out in this regard). so season 4 was not out of line in that respect. and in the final conflict at the end of season 5 he's still making his position about jon, about what's best for him, even though what he and jon want has diverged.

it's in some ways an evasive thing, focusing on jon—whether trying to influence jon’s actions or centring jon in his own—but you also get this kind of muddying of cause and justification. being unable on a fundamental level to conceive of himself as an active player in his own right—wanting things but not knowing how to approach the responsibility that would be implicitly accepted in pursuing them, either by himself or for himself; I think it's a big part of his “it’s not a betrayal if you’re doing it to help” philosophy, where ultimately his loyalty to jon as he conceives it can manifest in going actively against jon’s wishes

#tma #the magnus archives #martin blackwood #op #wrote most of this a couple months ago when I was listening to sedona by sir chloe on repeat #don't you wanna be nobody every once in a while. idk

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sixty-silver-wishes · 3 months

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why do so many caligari adaptations want to make francis The Worst Ever he’s just a guy

like. yeah. he’s impulsive and angsty and doesn’t always think things through. but he’s not an asshole he’s just some nerd who’s suddenly forced into solving a murder.

and he CARES ABOUT HIS FRIENDS. idk why so many adaptations decide to make him a dick to alan for no reason when like. alan being killed is the whole reason why the plot is kicked off in the first place??? francis is so hyperfocused on solving his murder through the entire film he literally can’t prioritize anything else. we see how close they are in the beginning, even if only for a few seconds. and he trusts jane enough to put her feelings above his own, respecting her decision as to whether or not she’ll choose him, and valuing her and alan’s happiness over his own. and even though she doesn’t show any romantic interest towards him, he still sees her as a refuge and trusts her enough to be vulnerable around her. she’s the first person he talks to after he finds out alan died, and we see them walking back from the funeral together. yes, his drive to solve the murder does come before his consideration for her feelings after she was kidnapped, but like. from his end, the guy was up all night looking for answers and, from his perspective, had a valid reason to doubt what she told him. which, yeah, his timing was horrible, but it’s also significant that as soon as he could tell she was upset, he went off to investigate again, even if he didn’t believe her. he’s a flawed guy, but at the end of the day, the film shows he’s fiercely loyal and devotes everything to his friends.

and like. you can draw parallels between francis and caligari. sure. both are ambitious, goal-oriented, active participants in the narrative. they both can get aggressive. and there’s a more complicated reading you can make of both of them using the concept of changing another character’s name and role to enforce their own identity (caligari forces cesare’s name and identity upon him so that he can be “caligari,” while francis wants to marry jane, which would change her surname and her role as the object of desire. there’s a whole tangent I could go off on about this but I won’t do that right now lol). both of them exhibit strong emotions, particularly desire and hatred. but the difference between caligari and francis is that while both of them may exhibit these traits, francis cares enough about the people he loves to put their own happiness and comfort over his own. he’s willing to let go of jane if she chooses alan, and is secure enough in himself to remain friends with them if this were to happen. caligari uh. very much does not do that. while francis will sacrifice his own pleasure for his friends’ comfort, caligari goes out of his way to make people uncomfortable for his own pleasure (and it’s interesting that they both display these opposing traits with regards to how they view jane in particular).

come to think of it. why don’t more adaptations like. make caligari Worse. a lot of them seem to really want to play it safe with him. yes, they make him evil and mildly creepy, but there’s a sort of restraint that a lot of adaptations take that isn’t there in the film. the only one I’m familiar with that attempts to explore the abusive aspect of him is the fucking “they are accompanied by francis who beats cesare to death with a club” musical, and even that one seems to detach itself somewhat from caligari’s exhibition of medical abuse, as it has him controlling cesare through a potion instead of the film’s implied psychological experimentation. the 2005 film, for instance, cuts out the part where he “becomes caligari” altogether, and many others lessen his role in the story.

I feel like part of the reason why so many adaptations steer away from exploring the full extent of caligari’s character is because they’re not interested in the symbolism of it, focusing on telling a conventional horror/mystery story instead of a allegorical examination of abuse and trauma, or perhaps for some, the allegorical implications are intimidating. caligari is abuse at every level, and I think understanding that is key to adapting his character. we see his manipulation and aggression on multiple scales, from how he interacts with individual characters (especially cesare) to how he runs an asylum and his carnival exhibition. the idea of an authority figure represented in such a way was so subversive when the original film was written that janowitz and mayer had to change the script to make francis delusional; is it possible that perhaps even today, the symbolism behind caligari and what he could represent- a man in a position of power who uses it to harm others for his own pleasure and to potentially mask his own insecurities- may be too uncomfortable for some people to really get into? I don’t know. but I have to wonder why so many adaptations tend to ascribe traits more in line with his character in the original film to francis.

tbh, maybe it’s ableism. that sounds like a leap, but the adaptations that frequently emphasize that francis is “insane” are the ones that tend to portray his character the most negatively, even within the frame story. instead of exploring how, outside the frame story, being institutionalized by an ineffectual (and possibly malevolent) authority figure may contribute to francis casting himself as a hero so he can get closure in a traumatic situation, a lot of them will go, “francis is insane, so therefore he Must be an aggressive selfish jerk!” which can also serve to sanitize caligari’s character, especially the ones that decide that francis is completely delusional and wrong about everything, and caligari is simply a rational doctor trying to help him. which, considering the themes of the original film, does Not have good implications. and maybe they’re not trying to be ableist, but are still playing into tropes that stigmatize disabled people, especially those who experience delusions. but idk

#the cabinet of dr. caligari #rambles #went off a bit with this one. oops

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theomnicode · 2 years

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Saitama and emotional blunting

It is pretty sobering thing to keep repeating that Saitama breaks things he loves and likes to do, whenever he feels normal emotions. Like little bit of excitement or anger and does things he likes and loves to do, such as playing games or punching monsters.

The carton of eggs he wanted to make food with, but he had to end up eating them mostly raw over rice and consume them all immediately, else they'd spoil. Because he punched a monster who made a deal about his bald head, something he's really self-conscious about and the shockwave of his own punch broke all the eggshells and ruined his plans for cost-efficient food.

Breaking King's console buttons and controllers that he likes to play with frequently, because King is nice and loans his gaming equipment to Saitama so he can play games and they can play together. One of his favourite past times. Other dudes would not be so forgiving if one constantly broke their expensive equipment and erased their save data. That is a deal breaker, definitely among gamers especially. You don't mess with save datas. It could be thousand hours worth save data, down the drain.

(I love how much focus ONE puts into King being such a nice dude, King is low-key so amazing)

Shredding his ugly shirt that he loves from his own punch's shockwave, to protect the judges who absolutely belittled his character and still not get proper acknowledgement for his deeds. Just because he was really annoyed the monster came to interrupt the whole thing.

And then the worst of them all...almost destroying the entire planet, because he snapped and flew into a massive rage fit and had an emotional surge so strong it destroyed entire star clusters. Almost destroying the planet he lives on.

Because he could not contain himself and stopped consciously inhibiting himself and his emotions and let them completely loose, because this time he wanted to break something and break it hard. He stopped caring about the consequences.

Saitama's apathy is entirely learned behaviour of inhibiting himself. Because he has learned that he breaks things when he feels too strongly about anything, he subconsciously blunts his emotions to be more detatched. But it is a maladaptive coping method and can lead to various issues, HAS led to various issues already.

I can only begin to guess if there is some underlying trauma at hand not just limited to him breaking his limits. But it seems very likely.

Emotional detachment and/or emotional blunting have multiple causes, as the cause can vary from person to person. Emotional detachment or emotional blunting often arises due to adverse childhood experiences, for example physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Emotional detachment is a maladaptive coping mechanism for trauma, especially in young children who have not developed coping mechanisms. Emotional detachments can also be due to psychological trauma in adulthood, like abuse, or traumatic experiences like war, automobile accidents etc.

Emotional blunting is often caused by antidepressants in particular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) used in major depressive disorder (MDD), and often as an add-on treatment in other psychiatric disorders. Individuals with MDD usually experience emotional blunting as well. Emotional blunting is a symptom of MDD, as depression is negatively correlated with emotional (both positive and negative) experiences.

This detachment does not necessarily mean avoiding empathy; rather, it allows the person to rationally choose whether or not to be overwhelmed or manipulated by such feelings. Examples where this is used in a positive sense might include emotional boundary management, where a person avoids emotional levels of engagement related to people who are in some way emotionally overly demanding, such as difficult co-workers or relatives, or is adopted to aid the person in helping others.

Emotional detachment can also be "emotional numbing","emotional blunting", i.e., dissociation, depersonalization or in its chronic form depersonalization disorder. This type of emotional numbing or blunting is a disconnection from emotion, it is frequently used as a coping survival skill during traumatic childhood events such as abuse or severe neglect. After continually using this coping mechanism, it can become a response to daily stresses.

Emotional detachment may allow acts of extreme cruelty and abuse, supported by the decision to not connect empathically with the person concerned. Social ostracism, such as shunning and parental alienation, are other examples where decisions to shut out a person creates a psychological trauma for the shunned party.

He uses emotional blunting every single time normal person would start to feel pissed at their unfair treatment, for instance. Or overtly emotional about anything, he blunts his own emotions down. Because he can feel very strongly, he forces himself to not feel strongly so he doesn't break everything in sight. When people judge him to be a rotten person at a glance and otherwise. Judge his ideals. His appearance. His heroism. You name it.

Don't be fooled by the dopey, unexpressive face. It's not healthy for him.

Being detatched from his emotions means detatchment from humanity. He is not yet cruel, but it's not a far leap to make if he went down the future route where Genos died, because even at the beginning of the series, he was blase to other people's concerns and their lives. Yet if he does not emotionally detatch, he ends up breaking things.

Important things to him.

His divine power being rooted in his emotions, feeling stronger emotions means he punches harder. But so do the effects get bigger. His strenght is just not limited to just punching things, every emotional action gets magnified.

He is afraid of not only the consequences of accidentally hurting people if he was to let loose and stop inhibiting himself, but also the abandonment that follows once people realise that he breaks their stuff accidentally. Or he could break THEM accidentally. The very few friends that he has made leaving him because he is far too strong for this world. Social ostracization and the fear of being isolated that he keeps facing daily.

His powers are a really cruel mistress.

And yet...

His emotions will also protect things that he cares about if he simply wills it.

Something he hasn't realized yet and did not consciously realize because his memory got conveniently erased.

King was completely in the blast zone of Serious punch that utterly vaporized Elder Centipede and his communicator that he had in his pocket broke, so he was caught in it. Yet he remains unharmed. He pissed himself in utter fear at the effects but unharmed aside from his pride, yes.

Genos core was held by Saitama and withstood everything thrown at him, because he willed and didn't want it to break.

If he understood this, he would not have to be afraid of accidentally destroying things or hurting things that he loves and inhibit his emotions and he could learn how to express his emotions again in their entire range and wholly. Deal with possible past trauma. And become more like his old self again.

Punch the rock-face of his emotional stoicness out of the way.

If I remember that our hearts turn kindness into strength I feel like I can protect someone more When I look up, I see the sky that is connected with you

(Yes the opening has metaphors of Saitama punching his inner demons out of the way. One by one. So he can become a true hero. There's a reference to rock-face in ONE's season 3 celebration tweet as well)

(ONE does not give him the easy way out lol, he has to learn his emotions and the connections with his power the slow, painful way)

(My man King is a beast and a true friend, he ate Serious punch, witnessed and FELT Saitama's powers, fears them and yet he still stands by his side and believes and trusts in Saitama that he can protect him)

#opm #one punch man #opm meta #saitama #king #emotional blunting #emotional detachment #inhibition #opm anime screencaps #opm manga panels #character analysis

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quiet-in-the-wild · 2 years

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Ugh sorry to vent like always

Earlier this week my mom sent us a care package & never once addressed me as any name at all. She sent it to our last name and put happy fall on the outside of the envelope. Which made me feel bad honestly. She won’t call me my old name or my new name.

So she called me & we were talking & she brought up my name change and how it’s been keeping her up at night(still refusing to say Ramona out loud) -

this is the first time she’s even addressed it since I told her I was changing my name.

And she sobbed, like hiccuping and sobbing saying how if only she could tell herself my name change was like a pen name, or for professional reasons she might be able to stomach it - (alluding to her general homophobia/transphobia)

And guilt tripping me on how my dad choose that name for me he always wanted a little girl named Nikki and how my first name combined with my middle name honored my grandma and how every time my mom said my old name it made her think of her beloved mother (who ironically changed her own name in her 20s because she hated the name Bertha)

And telling me how impossible it was for her to remember it because I’ve been her beautiful daughter Nikki for 30 years and I’ll always be her daughter Nikki no matter what. And she will always think of me as Nikki and never anything else.

And the entire call I had to comfort her & tell her it was ok. And I wasn’t expecting any overnight changes and I knew it would take time.

I think I was completely emotionally detached, maybe even disassociating during the call. I definitely didn’t expect us to talk about this but I honestly wasn’t surprised on how my mom acted.

And honestly seeing how horrible they reacted to me being gay- this was so mild. Horrible but mild. At least I wasn’t called any slurs this time.

But now my stupid trauma response of fawning has me thinking maybe it is all too much,

I hate how manipulative she is, how I can see it and recognize it as the emotional abuse it is, and still feel the need to people please & make myself smaller.

Tonight my wife called me Ramona & I felt a twinge of guilt. Like because of all of this I’ve made everything confusing and complicated for everyone.

And I know it’s not true- everyone else in my like have been super positive & supportive. But that stupid seed of self hatred that my mom taught me, and bullied into me as a kid is still there.

- but now that I’m re reading everything she said to me I’m realizing how messed up that whole conversation was. I didn’t feel anything then but it’s like hitting me now. Only this time I don’t feel scared for my safety, I just feel hurt. Hurt because my worst expectation about who she really is, and how she hasn’t changed one bit, were true.

I guess the one thing all of this is making me realize is how happy I am that my wife & I found each other. How safe we are for each other & all we want is for us to grow and be comfy, and feel loved. And have this trusting and relationship where our actions aren’t calculated or manipulative, or flat out abusive like the ones we grew up with.

#tw transphobia

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blacksunscorpio · 4 years

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Astro Musings No. 5

Placements Most Prone to Getting Stuck in Abusive Relationships

Are usually people with Venus in Scorpio because of the intensity of how they love and the intensity in which people love them back, Venus in Libra due to their penchant for trying to see the good in those they love. Venus square/opposing Neptune, due to these natives often idealizing those who do not deserve it. Venus in Pisces, due to their savior complexes. People with Moon squaring their Mars’, or Moon conjunct/squaring/opposing their Pluto’s— often they associate pain and intensity of feeling as equatable to love. These are the types of people who feel deeply and often have a hard time entertaining the idea of love unless there is some sort of “suffering” involved.

Many with Moon or Venus squaring Saturn

Can endure the same thing/have the same habits. I’ve found with the latter two the duration of these relationships will last a lot longer. This is because Saturn adds longevity to relationships.

Nessus in aspect to Dejanira in synastry

Can also cause obsession or at its worst, abuse. Sparknotes version of the Greek myth is a wild centaur named Nessus attempted to kidnap and rape Dejanira as he was ferrying her across the river Euenos, but she was rescued by Heracles. If you’ve ever watched Disney’s Hercules, Megara is the Hollywood version of this broad. In regard to synastry Dejanira is the asteroid of the victim, especially sexual, and Nessus indicates the abuser. If this appears in synastry you can be certain two people will have some sort of abuse involved in their relationship or some sort of intense obsession with each other than may not be altogether healthy. Be careful if it aspects [in square or opposition] Sado or Algol. No bueno. If touching Chiron it there will be some sort of lesson involved. Make sure it’s one worth learning. Aspects like these in astrology can be very humbling.

Typically if One Has an Aspect Natally it Will Often Appear in Synastry With Another.

For example, One can have their Sun opposing their moon and often attract people whose moons oppose or square their sun. If one has a Mercury squaring their Pluto, they may attract someone whos Pluto square’s their Mercury. You can often always trace a synastry aspect back to one or the other person’s natal chart.

People with Venus Conjunct Lilith

Will have enormous sex appeal. Their basic femininity will be in touch with their wild femininity. If in the 10th house, they may make a career out of it. Become models or make money off their figures. One of my best friends is a porn star and has this aspect. Her ‘Only Fans’ is poppin’.

People with Sagittarius 5th houses

Can/will adopt children from other countries or have children in countries other than their native land. Angelina Jolie’s 5th house is in Sagittarius and her whole brood save for 3 are of different ethnicities. People with the same rising sign as you often deal with many of the same issues as you and therefore, can be easier to have friendships/relationships with. This is typically because two people will have the same houses/house sign cusps.

Placements That Make One Lucky

Are often strong Jupiter placements. Jupiter rules fortune and is in general a benefic planet. Wherever he touches will show growth or excess of energy. It is best when he is working harmoniously. So, Jupiter trining/conjunct/sextiling inner planets or Jupiter trining the north node. Jupiter as the most elevated planet is a good indicator of someone who often gets lucky in the nick of time. Luck often comes through at the clutch for these folks. Asteroid Fortuna, Fama, or Abundantia making harmonious/conjunctions to planets like Jupiter, the Sun, or the Moon. The Sun in the 10th house is a good indicator of someone lucky in their career. Asteroid Karma No. 3811 in favorable aspect to inner planets, and/or Asteroid Talent No. 33154 in favorable aspect to inner planets or in benefic houses.

A good place to look to see determine someone’s physical features is often their Sun, Rising, Dominant planet, or Midheaven.

Yes, I know, not very exciting but I keep telling you guys to stop ignoring your Sun. It is the most powerful Planet in your chart. However, if we were to look beyond the Sun, Your rising sign is your face. Someone with a Scorpio rising will inevitably have some sort of intensity to them. 9 times out of 10, it has something to do with their eyes. The Midheaven will also show you a bit more, usually how a person carries themselves. I often find those with Virgo or Venus Midheavens [women] are very good in heels. Good with structured walking. Men will often have model-esque walks as well. Attention grabbers. Same with those with Capricorn MC’s. Neptune MC’s have a bit of a “swagger to their walk” like they’re swimming through air. Gemini MC’s are often very light on their feet. Aries MC’s walk in a very militaristic way. Straight backed. Authoritarian. George W. Bush has an Aries MC and walks in such a way.

Psychic connections in Synastry [Platonic or Romantic]

Are usually 12th house, 8th house, 1st house, or 9th house placements/Overlays. Aspect-wise typically Moon to the lunar nodes, Uranus to the Nodes or Moon, Vertex to nodes, PLUTO, or NEPTUNE to Mercury. Mercury to Moon, Mercury to Uranus, or Neptune. These are all highly psychic points. Having these placements in synastry/overlay will usually indicate dreaming of the other person, prophetic dreams [especially if 9th house or Jupiter is involved] Knowing what the other person is thinking or gut hunches about the person’s well being. If in harmonious aspect these will make you feel closer to the person or bolster feelings of affection. In hard aspect, it can cause obsession or the other person may feel as if they are “haunting” you. Trust me.

A Singleton Planet

is a planet posited in the only sign or house of its type [element, mode, or orientation]. For example, if your sun is the only planet in a water house, or if your moon is the only planet in a sign of universal orientation, those would be singletons. Singletons are EXTREMELY powerful forces in the natal chart. They can be considered focal points of consciousness, sometimes vehicles of manifestation. They are widely understood to have extreme expressions (or repressions) which are heavily symbolic in a native’s entire life.

People with many Aries placements, strong Martian influence, [especially if in aspect to Mercury or Mars], or hard Plutonic aspects [including conjunctions] tend to enjoy more aggressive forms of music. The types to listen to heavy metal/rock or hardcore gansta rap.

Leo and Aquarius mixing in a natal chart or in the 2nd house can make someone have a bit of a “bark” like voice.

Venus retrograde natives may have had a hard time or still have a hard time in their social lives especially if it’s placed in the 11th house.

On Chiron

People with Chiron in Aries have a fear of failure. Can suffer from identity issues. They can heal by empowering others and being independent. Chiron in Taurus feel as if they never have enough. May have grown up a bit poor or might feel as if they don’t deserve nice things. They can heal by being financially responsible, but also treating themselves to something nice once in a while. Chiron in Gemini feels like no one understands them, may have suffered from feeling unintelligent or their mental pursuits were discouraged. They can heal by speaking up. Writing or singing. Translating their pain into beautiful intellectual activity. Chiron in Cancer feel as if they can’t be vulnerable They may have been made to feel ashamed of their emotions. May have suffered neglect at home, specifically from the mother. They can heal by taking care of others. Cooking. Expressing themselves to those they trust. Not everyone will hurt you. Chiron in Leo may have suffered from being invalidated in life. Feeling rejected. Having impossible standards forced on them. Not getting recognition for their talents. They can heal through channeling creativity into art. Helping others see their worth. Being playful and bold in their own self-expression. Chiron in Virgo may suffer from some sort of distorted self-image. Perfectionism or excess of criticism from others/family. As a result, they can either be extremely critical or compensate by being people pleasers. They can heal by maintaining their health and seeing a counselor [remember Mercury who rules the mind is the ruler of Virgo so mental health is NOT something to ignore.]

People with Venus in Taurus

Are actually some of the slowest moving people in terms of romance. Even more than Capricorn Venusians. They love to take their sweet time. If they were to be a Tarot card, they’d be the Knight of Pentacles. Methodical, slow-moving, careful. They are caring but terrified of choosing the wrong person, being abandoned, or making the wrong move. They study the object of their affections almost to the level of Plutonians [but without the dark appeal]. This is because they want to know how and what pleases the other person. Very traditional.

Cancerians

Are very jealous in love and can give Scorpios a run for their money.

Leo Moons

LOVE ATTENTION I've noticed even more than Leo suns. Why? Because validation is often tied to what makes them feel good emotionally [moon]. These are the people who will post about 20 snap or insta stories talking about their day.

Gemini Mars’

Have a problem with dry-snitching on themselves. This is because their drive is tied with their intellect and speech. As a result, they can often find themselves saying more than they mean to.

Aquarian placements

Are high-key opinionated but are can also be the least accepting of other points of view, especially if Saturn/Capricorn is in the mix. This is because they are fixed air. So their mindsets/intellectual opinions are hard-pressed to change. Good luck trying to win an argument with one. However, they do move on quickly because they are detached by nature.

Sagittarians/strong sag placements will often make friends the easiest out of any zodiac sign. Opinionated but their curiosity for people from all walks of life makes it easy to relate to them. Those who come after would most likely be Gemini moons or 5th House/ 11th House Leo’s.

6th house placements, especially if Leo or Pisces sits on the cusp often are very good with animals. Piggybacking on that, Piscean placements tend to have an almost telepathic ability with animals.

Cats seem to take to Scorpionic people very easily, even if the native doesn’t care for them. As a matter of fact, most Scorpionic people have a knack with animals that are nocturnal. Spiders, Owls, Cats, Foxes. These animals will likely find a Scorpio native/ those with heavy Scorpio placements out of nowhere or perhaps never bite them.

Astro Musings No. 1 Astro Musings No. 2 Astro Musings No. 3 Astro Musings No. 4 Astro Musings No. 6 Astro Musings No. 7 Astro Musings No. 8 Astro Musings No. 9 Astro Musings No. 10

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organabanana · 3 years

Text

red || harley quinn/poison ivy

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Harley Quinn (Comics) Batman - All Media Types DCU

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence

Relationships: Pamela Isley & Harleen Quinzel

Characters: Pamela Isley, Harleen Quinzel

Additional Tags: Past Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, Abusive Joker (DCU), blood (plenty), Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Femslash February 2021, Femslash February, Sex

Series: Part 1 of the Femslash February 2021 series

Summary: A breakup, a healing process, color therapy at Arkham, and a series of life-changing realizations by Harley Quinn, with help from Poison Ivy.

Notes: Written for prompt #1 of Femslash February 2021: Red. Written around Issue 1 of Harleen: Black + White + Red by Stjepan Sejic which is an absolute masterpiece. I feel like this can be read even if you haven't read the comic but honestly it's super short and you should go read it because it is a work of art.

[ao3 link]

She doesn’t kill him.

She could kill him. That’s important to note. She could kill him. But she chooses not to. And for once — for the first time since this whole nightmare started — she doesn’t do it for him. It’s not because she loves him so much she can’t bear to kill him. It’s not because she thinks maybe one day they’ll get things right.

No. She doesn’t kill him because she doesn’t want to kill him. She wants him gone but not dead. Well — she wouldn’t necessarily mind if he happened to die. Have Bats forget his self-imposed limit and finally kill him. No, she wouldn’t mind. She just doesn’t want to kill him herself.

They stick with you, you know? The people you kill. Even if they deserve it. She would know. And she doesn’t want to carry his death around for the rest of her life. She just wants him gone.

So she stands there, bleeding and panting and struggling to catch her breath as she looks down at his unconscious body. That’s her blood on the knife by his hand. On his knuckles and splattered on his face, and you know what?

“You know what, Jay?” She says out loud, because why not? It’s not the first time her blood’s ended up all over him. Not the first time or the second or the tenth or the fifteenth. She kicks the knife away from him for good measure, even if the bleeding crack on his temple makes it clear he’s not gonna be getting up any time soon.

Still, though. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s tricked her.

Wouldn’t be the first time she’s let him trick her.

Because, you know what?

“I’m smarter than you think.”

So she stands there, Harley Quinn, with her blood-stained mallet and her blood-soaked harlequin costume, looking for all the world like the psychopath her Arkham file says she is. And — just look at her. She wouldn’t need to be a psychopath to kill him. To kill the man who turned her from a promising young psychologist into his peppy murderous sidekick. The man who’s kept her in a sadistic cycle of toxicity (both literal and emotional) for all these years.

The man who — for fuck’s sakes — just tried to kill her with a butcher’s knife.

(Though that last one might have been self-defense, to be fair.)

What she’s getting at — and she’s getting at something, she swears, that’s why she hasn’t moved yet — is that even the most even-tempered, mentally stable, never-even-heard-of-Arkham woman would probably consider killing the man who put her through that. It’d feel empowering, even.

But here’s the thing: Harley Quinn is smarter than most people think.

You don’t just forget all your training and your doctorates and your research just because you’ve spent several years on a murderous spree with your sadistic lover, you know?

So she knows she wasn’t a helpless damsel in mental distress being manipulated by the handsome criminal mastermind.

Oh, no.

She chose to get involved with him. She chose to give into the want and the danger. She chose to keep going back for more because somehow, in some dark and twisted corner of her reptilian brain, the little moments when they were good were so amazing — so perfect — that they made everything else worth it. She chose to pull a trigger and kill a good man for him.

And now she chooses not to kill a bad man.

For herself.

“And that’s fucking empowering, Jay.”

***

She goes to Poison Ivy’s lair because… well, because where the hell else is she supposed to go? She can’t walk up to Gotham General’s ER and ask for some stitches and painkillers unless she wants to be back in Arkham within the hour. She doesn’t have her own place.

But she has a friend. So here she is.

“Hey,” she says as soon as she walks into the greenhouse-slash-evil eco-terrorism lab, “door was open.”

No, it wasn’t. It’s just Harley knows the combination to get in. Didn’t steal it, either. Ivy volunteered it. Harley’s always kind of suspected there was some pity involved in that decision, but she’s not gonna be picky about the deep unspoken motives behind the actions of the single person in this God forsaken city that’s been consistently good to her.

The second Harley steps further into the room and the gentle warmth of the grow lamps hits her, she sees Ivy’s face change from her usual unreadable near-smirk to sheer horror, and she knows she must look even worse than she thought she did. She knows for a fact it’s not easy to shock Pamela Isley.

She gives Ivy a couple seconds to try and come up with something to say, but words seem to fail her, so Harley decides to just cut to the chase.

Heh. Cut .

“I broke up with him.”

There’s a sort of unspoken rule between them that says his name is forbidden when it’s just them.

“Did he do all that?” Harley swears she can see the exact moment Ivy’s worry makes room for something that looks almost like rage. “Did he do that to you?”

Harley shrugs and manages a wink even if the cuts on the bridge of her nose sting when she does. “Should’ve seen the other guy.”

The joke falls flat, as expected — Harley’s pretty sure some of Ivy’s ferns have more developed senses of humor than Ivy herself — but Ivy finally manages to stand up and get moving, which is good. Harley kinda needs a hand. And medical attention.

“I won’t know how bad those really are until I’ve cleaned them up.” Ivy says, already opening the cabinet where she keeps all her medical supplies.

It’s funny because Harley’s been here a million times, and she’s been patched up by Ivy just as many times before — not always because of Jay, sometimes it’s one of the batlings getting frisky — but she never realized until now that Poison Ivy doesn’t need medical supplies.

Ivy can heal herself. She can synthesize her own meds. She keeps that cabinet stocked just for Harley. That’s friendship, right there. Right?

With a bottle of alcohol in one hand and a box of gauze in the other, Ivy makes her way back to Harley. But instead of getting to work right away, she stops and looks up and down Harley’s body. And for the first time, Harley looks down, too. At the blood-soaked stretchy fabric of her costume, at the gashes everywhere with cuts underneath.

She’s a mess and a half, isn’t she?

“Let’s just—“ Ivy shakes her head and leaves the alcohol and gauze on the nearest flat surface. That won’t be enough to fix this. “Let’s just get you in the shower.”

The next minutes feel like she’s watching them from outside her body. Like she’s watching infamous eco-terrorist Poison Ivy, of all people, carefully peel off her costume and guide her into the shower stall through a television screen. Like it’s not really happening to her.

But it is. Happening.

So when Pamela Isley doesn’t even hesitate before walking into the stall right along with Harley? Harley feels that. She feels it when Ivy grabs the detachable shower head and turns on the water and tests it on her own skin, first, just to make sure it won’t be too hot or too rough on Harley’s. She feels the cool water washing over her skin, and the gentle touch of Ivy’s fingertips as they scrub at the dried blood, and she watches the water turn red as it swirls around her feet and down the drain.

And it’s a bit too much, you know?

This whole thing.

Almost killing the man she loves (still, even if she’s decided that’s not a good enough reason to stay with him), and breaking up with him for good, and the amazing contradiction that is a woman with poisonous skin touching Harley more gently than anyone ever has before.

It’s really no wonder she starts crying.

“This one will need stitches,” Pamela says, like she can’t hear Harley’s sobs or feel the way her body shakes. Because Harley’s already naked and bleeding and in pain, and Ivy pretending she doesn’t know she’s crying feels like being given a bit of her dignity back. And she fucking needs that right now. “Most aren’t too deep, though.”

Ivy keeps talking, narrating what she’s doing even if Harley knows for a fact she normally works in silence. But Ivy knows Harley needs it. So she talks about how the cuts on her face will probably leave some scars, and how the deep one by her bellybutton will need stitches, too. And when the water starts running clear because there’s no more blood to clean but Harley is still crying, Ivy starts all over again.

“This one,” she says, voice even and soothing in a way nothing has felt in years, “this one will need a couple stitches,” her fingertip gently taps the skin right next to the cut on Harley’s hip, and there’s something oddly heartwarming in the knowledge that that little tap would’ve killed anyone else in the world, but not Harley, “most aren’t too deep, though, Harl.”

***

She stays at Ivy’s for a couple nights at first, just because she has nowhere else to go. Then she stays for a week because you can’t really find a cute little one-bedroom rental in Gotham overnight when you’re in-between jobs as a psychotic murderess.

Doesn’t look great in applications, you know?

One week turns into two and then three and then suddenly it’s been three months and she’s pretty sure she’s living with Pam now. Which comes in handy, because she’s pretty sure she’s working with Pam now, too.

It’s funny because their criminal interests don’t seem to align at first sight. Harley mostly likes the chaos and the action, and Ivy just wants people to stop polluting the air. But they work well together. Ivy picks the targets and Harley the method, and it’s fun. It’s fun and it’s freeing and — listen, she knows she’s still killing people, okay? But it’s for a good reason, and she’s her own boss. It could be worse. She could’ve joined a pyramid scheme.

And living with Pam is nice. They get each other. They really do. Pam is hermetic, which makes Harley want to poke and prod and figure her out, but she respects Pam enough not to do it. And it goes both ways, too — in three months, Ivy hasn’t mentioned that first night even once.

It takes Harley three months, two weeks, and four days to realize why Pam always seems a bit surprised when Harley goes for a run or a walk or really any one-woman activity outside the lair and then comes back like she said she would.

It happens one night when Harley feels that familiar urge to blow off some steam by doing any kind of physical activity and leaves their home for a run around the park. As usual, when she comes back Ivy looks a little surprised. Like she was expecting her to not come back, for some reason. But then Harley notices something else. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of detail. The smallest, subtlest kind of sigh.

Pam isn’t just surprised Harley’s back. She’s relieved .

And Harley knows why, of course. She knows Pam’s waiting for the other shoe to drop — for Harley to forget she’s better than the Harley from three months, two weeks, and four days ago and go back to him.

“Y’know, Pammy,” Harley says, walking over to sit on the very edge of Pam’s desk, “I really like it here.”

She could’ve said more. She could’ve acknowledged the mammoth in the lair and point-blank tell Pam she’s not going back to him. But for some reason, that feels like intruding, somehow. It feels like telling Pam she’s noticed the sigh and the relief. And she figures her best friend deserves the same kind of privacy she gave Harley that first night.

“I figured. You know, since you won’t leave.”

Pam’s kidding. As it turns out, she does have a sense of humor — it just happens to be a bit subtler than what Harley’s used to. Most things about Pam are subtler than what Harley’s used to.

“I couldn’t do that to ya. You’d miss me way too much if I left.”

“Feel free to test that theory. I could use some quiet around here.”

Harley grins. Something wide and genuine in a way her smiles haven’t been for years. Pam wants her around. She doesn’t want the quiet. She wants Harley in her space, making noise and turning straightforward plans into complicated (and often dangerous) adventures.

For a split second, a thought forms in her brain. Something — something she nearly manages to fully process, but not quite. Something about the reason why Pam wants her around. Why Harley doesn’t want to leave. Why she sometimes thinks about asking Ivy to touch her again, like that first night. For no reason.

But the thought is gone as quickly as it appeared.

“I’d break your heart, Pam-a-lamb.” Harley hops off the desk and winks at Ivy and doesn’t chase after the thought because she’s not feeling particularly adventurous tonight. “I’m a better friend than that.”

***

Six and a half weeks later, Harley realizes Ivy is in love with her.

She’d say she realizes she’s in love with Ivy, too, but she tries to be honest with herself and it’s more acknowledgment than realization at this point.

It doesn’t happen at the best of times. It could’ve happened at home, for one. That would’ve been convenient. Maybe even outside during a night walk or something. But no. Of course she has to have her big realization in the middle of breaking into a building that’s chock-full of guards ready to protect a CEO with appalling recycling habits.

(Or whatever he actually does. All she knows is it pisses Pam off, and that’s enough for Harley to be down with murder.)

It happens when they’re up on the roof, waiting for the guard on the top floor to finish his round so they can sneak in and do their thing. They’re hiding in the shadows, standing close together even though there’s plenty of room and it’s not cold at all. It just feels better to be close, that’s all.

“He’s gone,” Harley whispers as soon as he disappears into the elevator, “do your thing, Red.”

And so she does. Pam places her palm on the skylight they’ve been looking through, and a vine starts growing around her arm and toward the glass. It’s not the first time Harley’s seen Pam use the Green. Obviously. It’s not even the hundredth time. But for some reason, it looks particularly enthralling tonight.

“I love watching that,” she breathes out, even though she’s not sure why.

“Watching what?”

“That. You.” It’s only when she reaches over to place her fingertips against the growing vine that she realizes she’s never really touched Pam. She’s been touched by Pam, of course. She’s prone to needing medical attention. But she’s never touched Pam.

And it feels like kind of a waste. Since she’s immune to her poison and all.

So from the vine — which feels more alive than any plant she’s ever touched — Harley slides her fingertips down until she feels warm skin instead. And that’s when she sees it. Pam doesn’t move a single muscle — she doesn’t even look at her — but there’s suddenly a red rose blooming on the vine.

“Oh, Pammy .”

Harley can’t stop smiling. Who cares if they’re about to kill an eco-unfriendly asshole and there are a million things that could go wrong? Well, she cares. Ivy cares, she’s sure. But this feels much more important than murdering some rich guy right now.

“Red, I lo—“

And that’s when it happens. Listen, she’s never happy to see Bats. Never. But of all the moments when he could’ve showed up to surprise them before they can finish a job?

Right when she was about to confess her love to her best friend is about the worst possible time.

Maybe that’s why the whole thing doesn’t go as smoothly as it usually would. This happens at least twice a month, after all, so fighting Bats feels more like a dance than any sort of true fighting at this point. But she’s still rattled from the sheer enormity of what nearly happened, and when they’re about to escape Harley trips over her own feet and finds herself looking up at the big guy himself.

Ugh.

On the bright side, she knows Bats won’t risk letting her go to go after Ivy as well, so, you know. Small victories, right?

“Don’t make me wait too long, Red!” she calls out, just because she knows it’ll piss him off. Pam doesn’t need Harley to tell her to get her out of Arkham as soon as possible. And tonight Harley’s figured out why.

***

“Stop grinning like an idiot and come on !”

“Thirteen days,” Harley says, tone mockingly offended even as she pants and struggles to catch her breath. They’re home, finally. Even if they found the lair, which they never would anyway, the Green would keep them out. “What took you so long, Ives?”

Ivy rolls her eyes. Thirteen days is nearly two months less than the time it took them to get out the last time they were locked up together, so it’s no wonder she knows right away that Harley’s not serious at all.

“You know I like a solid plan. I’m not much for winging it.”

“Yes, you’re boring, Pammy. I know.”

Ivy scoffs and sits down on the couch in the middle of the room. Well -- she collapses onto it, really, if Harley’s being honest. A quick glance around their home, with every surface covered in plans and maps and more clutter than Ivy would ever allow, lets her know her best friend’s probably spent the last thirteen days and nights planning her rescue.

If Harley could sprout a vine or two right now and make a couple roses bloom, she would.

“Are you all right?” Ivy looks at her, tired eyes studying her from head to toe. “How was it?”

Harley shrugs. “It was Arkham.” They’re both familiar enough with the place. Sometimes the person in charge is more sadistic, sometimes they have a more gentle approach. Either way, it’s gonna suck. “They have a new therapist. She does color therapy.”

Pam lets out a quiet chuckle. “Color therapy, huh.”

“Mhmm.” Harley tilts her head. Pam looks like she’s balancing on the edge between being awake and asleep. Like if Harley just kept her mouth shut for a couple seconds she’d completely pass out. “Would show me colors and ask what they made me feel.”

Should she feel bad for continuing the conversation? Maybe. Pammy does look exhausted. It’s just Harley’s missed her for thirteen nights because of Bats, and before that for over four months because of her own obliviousness, and for years before because of reasons not worth thinking about.

So excuse her for feeling a bit greedy about their time together right now.

“Did it work?”

“Sure did, Pammy. I’m just here to pack up my shit and join the batgang.”

The sound that comes out of Ivy isn’t even a real chuckle. It’s a sort of hint that maybe under different circumstances she would’ve laughed, but right now the best she can do is a half-smile and a quasi-snicker.

Harley’s pretty sure she’s never loved her more.

“Don’t fall asleep yet, Red. We’re talkin’.”

“We’re always talking, Harls.”

“Not for the last thirteen days, we haven’t.”

“C’mere,” Ivy pats the empty space next to her on the couch, “what do you want to talk about?”

It’s not the first time she’s sat next to Ivy on a couch, so she knows her gesture was meant to encourage Harley to sit somewhere on the couch but keeping a respectful distance. Personal space, and all that.

Of course, that was before. That’d feel downright ridiculous now. So she sits right next to Ivy, feeling the warmth of her skin through the rough fabric of grey Arkham sweatpants.

“Wanna know what color they wanted to know about, Pammy?”

Harley decides the brighter green across the bridge of Ivy’s nose counts as a blush.

“Hmm…” even Pam’s hum sounds more alert than before, like she’s suddenly realized this isn’t just another rambling midnight conversation on the couch, “black?”

“For Bats? Nope.” Harley’s fingertips trace slow lines along Ivy’s fingers, across the back of her hand and towards her wrist. When she finally looks up, she realizes Ivy’s watching their hands, too. “Guess again.”

Ivy swallows and lets Harley wrap her fingers around a green wrist, moving Ivy’s hand to rest on Harley’s thigh.

“Blue?”

Harley giggles. “Blue,” she repeats, leaning in to press a lingering kiss to Ivy’s shoulder and smiling when it makes Ivy’s fingers flex and squeeze Harley’s thighs, “why would blue mean anything, Ive? Nothing’s blue.”

“Your eyes are blue.”

“Maybe they’ll ask you about blue, then,” Harley shifts closer, chin resting on the spot she just kissed, “what does blue mean to you, Ms. Isley?”

Ivy stays silent for a handful of seconds, thumb mindlessly brushing against the Arkham sweatpants Harley suddenly wishes she’d taken off before sitting down.

“Chaos.”

Harley rewards the teasing smirk on Ivy’s face with a kiss to her jaw. “But in a good way, right?”

“Hmm,” Ivy pretends to think, “sometimes.”

“ Most times.”

Ivy doesn’t argue. Harley has a feeling the true answer is always, anyway, so this is meeting halfway.

“I’m good for ya, Ive,” Harley says, shifting closer so she can tuck red hair behind Pam’s ear and kiss the spot right by her earlobe, “and you’re so good for me.”

“Harley--” It’s somewhere between a sigh and a breath but there’s an edge of something serious underneath. Something that makes her tense slightly with the fear of this becoming a whole conversation about things that make you sob in the shower or sigh with relief when someone gets home.

“Shh,” she whispers against Pam’s ear, “guess again.”

“ Harley .”

“Please, Pammy.”

A sigh.

“White.”

Harley shakes her head, letting her nose brush against Pam’s skin. She smells like freshly cut grass and jasmine and a field after the summer rain. When she takes in a deep breath, Ivy’s scent fills up her lungs and makes her wonder if she’ll ever be able to smell anything else.

She kinda hopes she won’t.

“You know I know you’re avoidin’ the obvious on purpose, yeah?”

Ivy turns her head and looks into Harley’s eyes for a second, and then two, and then she leans in and steals the air from Harley’s lungs.

Her lips taste like rosewater and something Harley can’t pinpoint. The kiss is slow and steady and demanding , increasingly deep in the kind of unrushed way that makes Harley feel almost surprised when she suddenly finds herself straddling her best friend’s lap.

Ivy kisses her like a woman who’s been waiting for so long the concept of time doesn’t mean anything anymore. Like the wait has been so long the reward should be, too.

“Ive--” Harley pants, struggling to catch her breath when there’s no room for air in her lungs anymore. Ivy’s lips are flushed red, kiss-swollen and parted to let out warm puffs of air. “Pammy, I--”

“Green,” Pam says, voice low and quiet and as soft as her hands slipping under that ugly Arkham shirt. Her fingertips trace the scar by Harley’s belly button -- that needed a couple stitches a lifetime ago -- and keep climbing up, up, up until they’re grazing the underside of her breasts. Harley can’t breathe, but what a way to go. “Did they ask about green?”

Harley shakes her head, teeth catching her bottom lip as Ivy’s hands cover her breasts.

“They didn’t ask about green .” Pam says, one eyebrow cocked in question as if the pressure of her hands isn’t making Harley’s back arch to push pebbled nipples against Ivy’s palms. “Should I be offended they didn’t make the connection?”

The sound Harley makes was supposed to be a giggle, but it turns into a moan halfway through and honestly she doesn’t really care.

“Pammy…”

There’s something building up inside her -- something big and warm in her chest, pushing against her lungs and her heart. She’d say it’s love, but it’s too solid for that. Love is chaotic. It knocks your life off-kilter and makes you feel like you’re walking on a tightrope towards someone but the slightest gush of wind could push you off. Love hurts but it’s worth the pain. Love isn’t like this, steady and warm and solid and relentlessly there . That’s not what love is like.

Right?

“What is it?” Ivy’s voice is as soft as the brush of her thumb against Harley’s nipple.

It’s like someone’s suddenly helped her off that tightrope and told her it was supposed to be a nice little path all along.

That it’s not supposed to be a lonely walk towards someone, either. Ivy’s already right here.

Harley opens her mouth to say it out loud -- to tell Ivy about this amazing discovery she’s just made -- but she changes her mind. Ivy knows, anyway.

“You still haven’t guessed the right color.”

Ivy smiles.

“You said it was the obvious. I already guessed the obvious.”

As amazing as everything feels right now, Harley’s never been the best at delayed gratification, so she finds herself pulling one of Pam’s hands down and out from under her shirt to bring it up to her lips instead.

“The other obvious, Ives,” Harley wraps her fingers around Ivy’s wrist, thumb pressing against the pulse point there as she watches Ivy’s pupils dilate with each fingertip Harley kisses, “the… metaphoric obvious.”

“The metapho--” Harley smirks when her lips wrap around Ivy’s middle finger and the breath catches in Ivy’s thoat “--rical obvious?”

“Mhmm,” her voice vibrates around Ivy’s finger before she lets it go with a wet ‘pop’, “c’mon, Pammy. Guess again.”

But Harley doesn’t think Ivy remembers her own name, let alone what they were talking about. Her fingers dig into the flesh of Harley’s breast and her eyes look so dark they may as well be black when Harley’s tongue licks a path up a second finger this time.

The only sounds she can hear are their labored breaths when she guides Pam’s hand down and under the waistband of her Arkham sweats, and then something halfway between a sigh and a moan when slick fingers slip between slicker lips.

Harley’s hands rest on Ivy’s shoulders, holding on for leverage as her hips begin a steady roll to the rhythm Ivy’s fingers set between her thighs.

“Keep going,” Ivy’s fingertips press up against her clit and Harley’s eyes flutter closed, hips rocking with more purpose than before, “don’t stop.”

Ivy leans forward, teeth gently nipping at the skin of Harley’s neck, and Harley swears if she didn’t know she was immune she’d think she’s under some kind of botanical spell. But no. No, this is just Ivy, as it turns out. Ivy finally thrusting two fingers inside her and making Harley move one of her hands to fist in soft, red hair.

She rides Ivy’s fingers with abandon, feeling Ivy’s tongue against her neck and Ivy’s hand on her breast and Ivy’s heartbeat somehow in her chest, and she’s amazed to realize she doesn’t feel like she could die for this. Like she could kill for this. Because she will never need to.

She feels like she could live for this, though.

Has she never been in love before?

“Red.” Ivy’s voice comes muffled against Harley’s neck just as she shifts her hand to press her thumb against a swollen clit.

“What.” Harley can’t even manage to make it a proper question. “Wh-- Fuck , Ives.”

“Is it red?” Ivy’s panting, struggling to push the sound out like she can’t quite decide whether she wants to speak or keep doing whatever black magic she’s doing to Harley’s neck.

“Harder,” Harley’s fist tightens in Ivy’s hair, “so close .”

She doesn’t know what does it. It could be the flick of Pam’s thumb against her clit, or the feeling of Pam’s nails against her breast, or the hickey Pam’s leaving on Harley’s neck. Whatever it is, it makes Harley come with Ivy’s name on her lips and her muscles clenching around Ivy’s fingers until she collapses against Ivy’s solid frame.

“We’re not done yet,” Harley mumbles, shuddering slightly when an aftershock of pleasure jolts up her spine, “don’t you dare fall asleep.”

She feels Pam’s chuckle against her neck even before she hears it.

“I’m not going anywhere, Harls.”

There’s a deep sigh, but this time it comes from Harley instead. “I know.” And she does. She knows .

“So. Was it red?”

“Mhmm,” Harley kisses Pam’s shoulder, “wanna know what red feels like, Pammy?”

She feels Ivy nod against her neck.

“Safe.”

#femslashfeb2021 #harley x ivy #harley quinn/poison ivy #harlivy #fanfiction #fic #comics #dcu #poison ivy

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suworkbook · 4 years

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Three people on the verge of a breakdown here. It seems to me that being a fusion must be a peculiar emotional experience. The threat to a cohesive fusion is emotional affect - it almost seems one must be able to detach, dissociate from your own specific affective response to a situation and be resonant with another’s, in a way that is unmatched in a normal social exchange. You can’t just bring your own history, you must vibrate like a tuning fork to your partner’s. It’s a more intense connection than any rational listening process could elicit. It’s one thing to observe someone is angry, and quite another thing to catch the colouration of their anger, to be able to narrow down into a shared emotional world with them. But while that fused affective state can be dangerous in some relationships, it can be a tool to nurture change and growth in others. We learn to bear past pain and anticipate future pain effectively, and to accept emotional visibility without shame, only if someone first sits besides us while we learn to bear our current anxiety.

I think it’s a mindset that would allow Stevonnie to feel safe enough to express their vulnerability through rage dancing. But when they defuse, we find Connie laughing hysterically and Steven on the edge of tears. I honestly think you could interpret this any which way you choose, but to me I see an abrupt disconnect from Stevonnie’s anger, an evasion and minimisation of a situation Steven and Connie don’t have the tools to deal with. They’re channeling a whole host of complicated emotions into this one very physical shared experience of dancing together. It might be something that brings them emotional relief from anxiety and stress, but is it something that helps them process and grow from what they’ve been through? I don’t know.

In my view this was just an experience Steven and Connie were too young for? Dealing with a creepy guy who keeps pushing you is tough at any age, but for two kids this young they're barely beginning to learn how to tolerate intimacy without a loss of boundaries. It’s something they found difficult with each other, in their very open and trusting relationship. It’s not something they’re prepared to face, even together, against someone with more world experience and a willingness to abuse it.

Also Sour Cream is totally fucking high right now.

#Steven Universe #su liveblog #su0136 #and we end by pulling out of the warehouse and gazing in at a crowd gazing at Connie and Steven's little meltdown #no star wipe to be seen #i have no idea what to think about this episode but it's incredible #i love it #it might be my favourite so far #was this a good experience for steven and connie?#i don't know #but it was A experience #i honestly have no idea how to feel about that #people please tell me how you feel about the ending and how you interpret it because i'd love to hear it #anyway this liveblog has gone on long enough #it's time for us to depart back to the pits we crawled out of

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morningcool · 4 years

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Hurts - Faith (review) ‘From V to D’ 1 month later

We’ve got a new religion - Faith.

Just look at the cover.

Don’t say you don’t get any of the songs.

‘Cause here they are, looking straight into your eyes.

Hello everybody, it’s been a while. Love being traditional so yes, I’m definitely going to say a few words about Faith. Seems like nowadays all Hurts fans' lives are on Telegram or Instagram but I kinda still like this little world here. As some of you might remember I do listen to their albums literally blindfolded and as always I’ve counted the waiting days - 1071. The longest and the most frightened waiting is over but the new one is on or not?

Oh, Gosh I’m literally shaking. I’ll definitely say my feelings about every song but a bit later.

As for now just let me say a few important things. This album is quite special for me. It killed me from the first listen. Every word of each and every song on it reflects my inner world. Like Adam said I always perceived music as a gateway into discovering my feelings, it’s a lingering journey of knowing myself. This album is not an escape, it's a story of facing yourself. It took me a while to talk about it, ‘cause after encontless listening I plunged into deep thoughts. Well, it seems like we are all originally from our childhood. And if we weren’t accepted and loved the way we needed here we are, adults with the eyes of a kid. We can be implemented in the profession but we still will be chasing wrong people in search of unconditional love. The truth is we won’t be loved by anybody until we’ll be in peace with ourselves, until we won’t feel the luck of anything. Remember Theo’s role in “A little something for your Birthday”? Lovely idea of a film, don’t you think so? So the only way to cope with all our wounds is discovering and understanding our true nature. Listening and dealing with emotions we all have instead of scrolling them. That’s it, sounds quite simple but it’s the hardest work ever. We used to run away from ourselves but the real growth is only in being who you are.

To be fair, looking back to when I began being a Hurts fan I never thought that one day we’ll be on the same page. But now I see that we were always there. From Happiness to Faith they did a soundtrack of my inner search. Search for acceptance of myself. They become one of my Voices who’s always there for me when I feel the most low. Ironically I’ve never been the one who’s listening to the songs they like until getting sick of it. Hurts’ songs are pouring in me and then living in me like a part of my body or something. I’m living them.

Do you remember Ben’s filming during Desire tour? I witnessed a few interviews myself. It was quite interesting. But the thing is he never asked why do all these people do what they do? I can only say for myself. I’m spreading Hurts ideas, way of thinking, music at least not last because of a gratitude for everything they made me go through. I found myself in helping people to learn them. To understand what’s going on around the music they do. Because Hurts music you know has always been so much more than music. I kinda feel like a Hurts’ voice. Through this years I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve translated, I personally heard and read them all. And it might be one of the reasons why I’m still here, writing this review. Knowing that my translations have been read by thousands of people and if only one person out of them gets what Hurts really meant is making me the happiest person ever.

The last year for me personally has been the hardest one. I think that for those one who’ll be reading my opinion on the songs it’s important to know that one of the reasons above thousands others for such a rating mark is because my heart was broken for the first time in ten years. I’ve let myself fall in love but it just didn’t work. I might be fractured or crucified but here I am the way I am. And it is ok.

Uh, it’s been a hard few paragraphs. Coming back to the review. I feel like I should start with the promo stuff. I was watching it with interest but got no power to join. Maybe it’s because being a part of a Hurts path for 11 years in a row on a daily basis (if only I was 10 years younger *winking), maybe ‘cause of some personal struggling. When you’re becoming older you don’t need the preparation for the dark album you’ve already living like this. To be fair, I tried a few puzzles in the start, spending 8 or 10 hours on them and buried the idea ‘cause felt like a hero from the “Lost in Translation”.

Listeners will always be arguing about new music. Eternal discussion about being a true fan and loving and accepting all songs equally or being picky and liking only a few will always appear with every new era. For me love is only true if you’ve got an open heart and your mind is free of expectations.

But I’m here to talk about music, so that’s it.

“Voices” – a contrast shower. When guys released promo, with the lyrics, I was in a deep mess, bursting into tears, with those two videos only. I didn’t need any other interview about the album or something, I’ve read them all and the whole puzzle came into a place through the words of the song. Through the meaning of the lyrics. It’s bold, sincere, personal, intimate. That’s what Hurts music is about. Always. With the sound - it’s a step forward. Love the vocal part (it’s so disarming), what a broken drum line (my personal crush) and what about an anthemic plum? The song is so unexpected but it felt so right and once again thanks to the microwave. It saved so many souls. And again I know how sometimes those voices can abuse, pursue, bother. How for example they can reflect your parents' installations displaced your own voice. Equally I know how almost the same voices like Hurts songs can make you feel better. Can make you feel heard, adopted, dear how they can comfort you and sympathize. That’s what true music can do for us. Becoming that person from a Darkest Hour. Guys, thank you.

“Suffer” – a slap in the face. Looking in the mirror straight into your own eyes and confessing the addiction. Love how the detached vocal contrasting aggressive mood of the sound. It’s that stage of the relationship when you understand it’s inner reasons. When you face how curved your true nature is because of your addiction. And that can totally make you realise that you became a slave to your own emotions. Seeing this gave you the reins of government back. You can still be in a relationship but for now they dissolve you with acid. And the more you’re being tactile touched the more lonely and fey you become. Don’t think I should mention how painful this experience might be. And I love how prickly the cofemashine part is sounding, how it’s cyclicality reflects the whirl of thoughts. The cards revealed. You realised that you’ve been hiding in a fake little world but you still want to be there because you don’t know how to act differently. Virus detected but the whole system is paralysed.

“Fractured” – an opened wound. Here we go, you still looking into your own eyes but now poison penetrates your insides. At that stage you start hating yourself. You’re your only foe now. You can’t cope with any tactile contact any more otherwise it might kill you. With the words “I might be everything that is wrong for you” rang out the unsightly truth that she is that viper warmed on the chest. But at that stage you reflect everything on yourself ‘cause it was you who chose her to be your lover. So in a way it’s fair enough. And that’s why you are a complete mess now. Confess, I squealed listening to it for the first time. And I’m still frozen with every whispered word and how harsh melody before the broken serene vocal line of an ending almost licks my neck a way straight up to my earlobe. ASMR isn’t it?

“Slave To Your Love” – the beginning. Here we go, that’s how the story of an abusive relationship started. You fall in love but it’s not the same for the object of your love. Maybe she’s not ready to admit to herself that you are not the one. Because of lots of different reasons it’s even not important you’ll never know them anyway. It’s quite often she doesn’t understand it herself. But the thing you can do is ask: Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I choose those who don’t see me? I mean you think you can’t do it while you are in love but that’s not true. Even being drowned by a wave of feelings we still keep hearing our inner voices. That admitting, warning us but we used to skip them through good or tough times being in love is not an exception. The reason for abuse is never in the person we choose, it's always in us. The sound in the chorus with the phrase “I’m a slave to love” feels like the ringing of bells of that little inner voice it’s calling for your attention. You’re a slave. And the music soundtracks it perfectly, you’re running and jumping from a cliff to nowhere. The final whirlpool of the melody is like a hurricane funnel that swallows you.

“All I Had To Give” – a confession. This is it. Can we skip this song, please? No, not this time. Now - is the time to face it. For me, this song might be the hardest to listen to ever. The same reaction I had listening to Unspoken. But this one says everything that was silent before. I can’t even try to imagine how it feels to share such sincerity with the song. Listening to it for the first time I petrified, lost the control of my emotions and bursted into tears. I had to stop listening to the album. It took me quite a while to decide to continue. I can still hardly restrain my emotions each time I dare to listen to it. I can try to express my sensible feelings while listening to it by drawing a film scene. Imagine an empty highway in the middle of the desert. You’re standing all alone and the silence that surrounds you and it’s almost tangible, peaceful isn’t it? But in a second without having time to blink you’ve been hit by a car and as soon as it appeared it disappeared with a sound like the bee buzzing or something. And here you are - a crippled lonely body lying on a highway in the middle of nowhere. Impressive isn’t it? Yes I’m in awe of what this song does to me. Yes, that’s how I open myself up - admitting that I never do. Am I suffering the consequences of it? Sometimes. Because I don’t like it but it's the wrong direction in relationship with yourself. Oh, the musical frame of this picture is something special. Isn’t it a true miracle that somebody knows exactly how to express your feelings with a song. And lucky Theo.

“Liar” – a thriller. What a brave expose, amazing. Such a vivid picture. Can you see those lying eyes? Oh, feeling being scanned. But I’m on the other side. I know that feeling of being deceived. The sound with the first Liar in the chorus made me terrified, indescribably incredible. Caught at the crime scene. As if this word set fire to the leaf and before the eyes of the observer it just became an ashes. And everything that was important and dared became rubish. Personal Hiroshima in one word. So simple and yet so heavy. Like all the weight of the world rushed onto your shoulders. Saying this one word made you a grain of sand. You don't seem to exist anymore. Everything depreciated. And I love the buzzing sound of the second verse. It's like a kaleidoscope of memories turning to dust. And the ending of the song - that final scream “Liar” it’s like a circle crying in your head when you’ve already left alone.

“Somebody” – an anger kick. Well, now the liar has a word to say. But thankfully you get the strength to close the door behind yourself instead of just realizing that you've been cheated. This is no longer a protest, but a riot. The time when arguments no longer exist. Your anger is a gunpowder and all previous behaviour was a flame path and now all your powder kegs are exploding inside forcing you to act. To shut her lying mouth up. It’s enough. This blast blows you away with its wave and the present becomes the past. You’re still in the heat of passion but to stay is not an option any more. The shackles fell down. Your words about somebody are more like a precept now. But also a prick to the deceiver, you admit the existence of someone else next to you. She’s no longer the one for you. And what a lovely dubstep sound in the final chorus. Those guitar riffs in the end are so sharp. I love the whole dynamic from the introduction through the verse to the chorus. An emotional storm from the beginning till the end. The whole song itself is like an interrupted inhalation on 0:38.

“Numb” – a psychological coma. Have you ever been mentally paralysed the way deep so you can’t actually move? Oh, how clever the album is composed. Being myself stuck between “Somebody” and “Numb” nowadays I can’t even explain how I’m amazed by the story they told through Faith. 2:15 and what a scream I can only wish I could’ve cried it all out, thanks for the music that does it for me. How lovely starts the last chorus, beautiful vertigo, feels like a stranglehold on the neck limits the intake of air into the lungs. You escaped from prison, but you have not yet freed yourself in your mind. Inside you are still a prisoner, barely breathing. It's a terrible time of withdrawal symptoms for the past life ‘cause it’s the same way as a drug addict. Poker face inside out. The fish is lying on the floor and moving no more. Just reflexively swallows air. Everything around has become mechanical, you are a biorobot. And the marching rhythm of the whole song confirms this. you're just trying to keep running on autopilot.

“Redemption” – a repentance. The reassessment of the values of those who returned from the war. After all you’ve been through here you are accepting the consequences of your own choices. The only thing that’s left is hope. Hope that not all is lost and the ship, although with a hole, does not go to the bottom. After all, ships do not sink in water, they sink only when the water is inside them. Even standing on the bridge across the Severn, the biggest challenge is still to accept yourself with all your mistakes, regrets, wounds, scars and demons. You can’t change your past acts or inactions. The only person who's really judging you is you. And the only way to find peace is to forgive yourself for not listening to your own inner voices or listening to the wrong ones, imposed by society or any other external frameworks. Everything that happens with us is solely our will. Facing it all can be hard sometimes. Should we talk about music in the song? I don’t know how. The melody and the lyrics were made for each other despite the fact that they were written at different times and under the influence of different circumstances. And what an epic final part with strings and horns it made the song something more than a song as if personifying the fall of an angel from heaven. When the ground is slipping off under your feet as a boomerang of your actions returns to the sender by making a circle.

“White Horses” – a dizzying allegory or a black sheep. A real outstander of the album. Cinematique lyrics continue to roll the gallop of white horses along the edge of the sea wave. But looking at their developing manes and contracting muscles in the rays of the setting sun as if in slow motion, in my thoughts it’s not running horses at all. Is your breathing quickening too? Bet you flashing your own private moments. During the first time I listened to it, I really got dizzy. The song spun me off the reality. Never had such an experience myself so it’s hard for me to see Madeline. But I’m ok with it ‘cause from the outside it seems quite brave. I guess I sympathize with her. It might be a nightmare, in reality, exchanging real intimacy for stones. Isn’t it that poison that fills up the void? Anyway, I am in awe of the music that took me on the carousel of my beautiful but painful memories. I liked the wind that disheveled my hair during the trip. He is the only one besides music and water allowed to touch me.

“Darkest Hour” – a keystone. That what Hurts music has always been for me. That exact moment I heard the chorus for the first time I thought how much it means to me. It got me in an emotional mess. I cried. Bitterly. Hurts music is my beacon, and as long as I can experience moments like this I live. Feeling the fullness of life with every cell of my body and soul. That song gives me goosebumps and tears with each listening. Maybe, like the guys said, it’s a moment of hope but it feels like an escape for me. Might be for the first time in this album. We don’t look into our reflections, but we look into each other's eyes. And it’s the best feeling ever, even if it all happens in my mind only. It just doesn’t matter as long as I can feel it it’s real. It reminded me of a hug we shared with Theo after a pre-listening to the Desire three years ago. (read more here) That was so unexpected but yet so right and I feel like every first listening of a new album should end with a reciprocal embrace of the musicians in gratitude for everything that their music has brought into your life. Because with every sung word I feel like I’ve been warmed up and cuddled tighter and tighter. So in the end I can barely breathe. What an epic crescendo with a guitar solo in the end. The quintessence of Theos’ words embodied in music, raising you above all that is mortal. Thank you.

And now I ask especially sensitive natures not to read further. Because further I will write something that cannot be accepted by any heart that belongs to Hurts.

"What if" has a strong meaning. Whatever you'll place after could change the whole mood or meaning. So I'm terrified, almost shaking but writing 'cause I'd never in ages could've said it out loud. What if... Taking a deep breath. What if Faith is the final Hurts album. Don't ask why and don't try to kill me. It's murdering enough to even think, not write.

If so, then Faith is a perfect illustration/description of how Hurts fan gonna feel himself when he'll know that this is the end. If so, then it's understandable why they tried to kill us with puzzles. They not only wanted to get us to the place where we'll feel sick and confused but wanted to show us how they have lived for the last few years. How does their profession make them feel. How easy you can come close to insanity. How they pushed themselves to the limit and what happened after. They're burned down. That's what they're telling us with the video for Redemption. And here they are on their knees, burning and at the last moment raising their hands into the skies and this is Faith by Hurts. That is it. In a prayer even the last moment they still physically want to have faith. They want to have hope, but it's burned and Faith is the only thing that's left. Do you see why the cover of Voices is torn? And all this confessions on Spotify.

I feel so sorry and lost writing about it and I hope it’s just my own crazy stupid fantasies caused by the bad times on personal fronts. Maybe I should say a few words about myself so you might understand what's going inside me right now and why I decided to share this without you. I'm following Hurts advice to share, face the demons and try to get out of the place you're in. Well, let's talk a bit. I'm sure you feel confused too but let's go for an imaginary walk. Maybe together it's not that scary. And that is another reason why they created the Telegram Channel. Coincidences? Nah, I don’t think so.

It's fashionable now to say: “I've been with Hurts all their path through.” But for me it's fair enough but not really. They'd hit me in 2010 with Bizz Session for The Sun covering Kylie. I was 22 and searched for a handsome man because I felt a lack of beauty around me. That was my crazy guilty pleasure, watching some commercials with male models. You might be laughing, but the description of the video said: "I could sell my soul to the devil for a man like him". I was intrigued and played it. I knew Kylie's song but the way Hurts did it was something special. Absolutely insane it still gives me goosebumps rewatching it. Never in ages I would ever believed that the video could change my life but it did.

The first Moscow show took place in a 25 minutes walk from my house and I got there 8 hours before the start. Didn’t have a ticket ‘cause the show was sold out but I thought that I should be there anyway. Maybe I still got a chance to see them. I was standing surrounded by dozens of girls with drawings and photographs for autographs. I saw Paul and Richard taking pictures with the fans. I watched all this from the side. I had a CD in my bag, a collection of Russian music that I recorded for the guys specially. I didn't give it to Paul or Richard. I don't know why. Maybe I was dumbfounded by the agility of the surrounding girls, throwing themselves on the musicians' necks. In general, I stood at the club until the evening, when one guy came up to me offering to buy a ticket which I did and get inside. I was frozen to the bone by that time because outside there was no more than 8 degrees Celsius. I remember standing in the lobby and talking to the girls from the queue, I said that I regretted not giving the disc. And at that moment I saw Richard coming down the stairs to meet me. I called out to him, he burst into a wide smile, grabbed me into his bear hug and agreed to give my gift to the guys. It all seemed kinda crazy. I was twitching nervously at the entrance to the hall, choking on cigarette smoke. And when the doors finally opened, a frantic wave carried me inside. The minutes of waiting dragged on painfully long. The musicians followed each other and the moment Hurts finally came out, changed everything. ‘Unspoken’ opened the set list of the concert and the door into my heart. That was it, my story was told, like you know in Fugees’ song:

“...I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style And so I came to see him, to listen for a while And there he was, this young boy, a stranger to my eyes Strumming my pain with his fingers Singing my life with his words Killing me softly with his song Killing me softly with his song Telling my whole life with his words Killing me softly with his song I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on…”

And from that exact moment I kept an eye on them. I wanted to be a part of the Hurts’ world ‘cause they in a strange and completely incomprehensible way to me were already a part of my own path. Since then my day to day life includes Hurts. News, interviews, photographs, posts, translations and everything imaginable and unimaginable stuff around. But not as an addiction that blinded me but as a conscious choice.The choice of a person who’s been understood, heard and accepted by two strangers. No matter how strange it may seem. Their music recognized me. This is my heartbeat. This is who I am.

And that is why my heart skipped a bit while I was watching the video for “All I Have To Give” and couldn’t move for two hours after. I literally sat in front of the monitor for two hours in a row in complete disbelief. How did it happen that they spent themselves so recklessly. Why did we let ourselves treat them in such a way that they burned out. Yes, you can say that we are not guilty. But I think that in addition to the choice that the guys made themselves, there is also a share of our participation in this. This brings to mind the nasty things that Adam casually mentioned in his latest q&a on his Instagram live stream. I’m screaming Billie Eilish lyrics here:

“As long as I'm here No one can hurt you Don't wanna lie here But you can learn to If I could change The way that you see yourself You wouldn't wonder why you here They don't deserve you”

Unfortunately, not all fans understand the consequences of their actions. But as long as I can't influence the actions of others I don’t wanna talk about it no matter how much it upsets me. Of course, you can argue with me and say that they knew what they were doing, choosing the life of an artist. And there is a grain of justice in this, as well as in the fact that when you compose music in the bedroom you have no idea what the consequences of popularity might be. Not all musicians write music about themselves, about their experiences, troubles and pain. Not everyone is ready to speak directly and openly about themselves, looking into the eyes of their listeners. Hurts music is always like that. This is her true nature. Even if the creators are eager to escape from themselves, the music reveals everything. Because these are not just new songs, this is a whole life. Life that is hidden at the fingertips of Theo and Adam while they write songs. They are not entertainers, they are two humans. Two personalities that have a chemistry to help each other to open up and be realized in music. A precious gift that they both carry in this world. Every time I think about it, I sink into awe.

That is what it’s all about. That is what it means to be a real musician. That's what it means to be human, accepted, understood and loved. Understanding and appreciating such a support, such a connection, we keep a grain of truth in our hearts. And I immensely value every new day I have lived, the day when there are two wonderful people in my life, Theo and Adam. Thank you for everything!

We do not know what the future holds for us, we do not know what will happen in a minute. But knowing that somewhere there are two people you don't know but who are able to feel the same as you, it gives life a taste. If you need time to recover, find new yourself, embrace the life you have chosen or embark on new adventures, you can manage your time as you see fit. Just know that your magical ability to write music is a gift you seem to have come into this world to share. And your listeners don't take your albums for granted. Each time - these are moments of absolute inexplicable and all-embracing happiness and joy, both for you and for myself, that I've managed to hear, share and experience a true miracle. And can tell the world about it, as I just did. Thank you!

I don’t think any of you got here. Don’t think you’ve read it all but if you did thank you for your time I really appreciate your attention. I hope some of my words resonated in your soul.

I’ve got my own odd tradition to say personal Hurts oath after a new release. Now I can repeat it for the fourth time: ‘To be your faithful fan in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to respect you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and inspire you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you from this day forward until the day when your sixth album will be released. Hutcherson.’

P.S.:

If you’re still alive and want to, you can also read my Exile, Surrender and Desire reviews, they are much shorter (giggling).

#hurts #Hurtsfamily #hurtsband #Theo Hutchcraft #theohurts #Adam Anderson #adamhurts #faith #hurtsfaith #albumreview

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theunsophisticatedcat · 4 years

Text

Life Couldn't Get Any Better.

Javier Escuella/Male!Reader

*First fanfic! Hope I did okay😖

Y/N L/N was not a gentle or sweet man. He was a man hardened by traumatic and gut wrenching events that occured throughout his life. He was not a charismatic sweet talker like Trelawny, he was not a smart man like Dutch, Lenny, or Hosea, and he was not a jokester like Sean, Uncle, or Pearson. He was Y/N and he was happy being him. Y/N hardly showed emotion or interest in anything, even in dire situations. Well, that all changed when he fell for Javier. Javier managed to bring out an opposing side of the tough man, one that was bubbly, nervous, funny, and downright sweet. One that showed human emotion.

The two hit it off immediately when Javier first made it to camp. Javier sat by the man at the campfire, Y/N didn't mind, the kid seemed decent enough. Y/N had been quietly stringing up his guitar, he growled in frustration as he couldn't get the strings to go on properly. A hand reached out for the guitar and gently took it out of Y/N's grip. Y/N looked up and saw that the kid was restringing the guitar with ease. His eyebrows furrowed in conecntration, his hands moving delicately, his dark brown eyes looking over his work. Javier plucked a few strings to make sure that the right strings were in their proper place. He handed the guitar back and turned his attention back at to the fire.Y/N uttered out a silent 'thanks' before clearing his throat. The kid nodded and continued to stare into the fire.

"Hey... Javi, was it?"

Javier looked up in interest and nodded his head yes. Y/N held the guitar up to him.

"Do you play?"

It's been many years since the day they met, a lot has changed since then. The camp has lost many people like Jenny, Davey and Mac, but things seemed to be settling down. The camp was in good spirits for now. Javier and Y/N grew closer over the years, they decided to take things steady for now. Y/N was still new to the romance scene and often times, he asked the men of the camp for advice. Charles had suggested that gives Javier flowers.

Y/N walked through the camp with his chest held high and a colorful bouquet of flowers within his grip. Everyone looked at the normally grumpy man bizarrely as he made his way past them with an excited look on his face. His E/C eyes scanned the camp looking for someone in particular, his eyes lit up in excitement once he saw them. He quickly started to make his way toward them.

Javier, who had been underneath a tree playing his tunes on his guitar, quickly noticed that a shadow was blocking the once beaming sunlight. He looked up and saw that it was none other than Y/N himself, who now had a nervous expression on his face. Javier smirked at the man," Hello, 𝑚𝑖 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑟~"

Y/N blushed and cleared his throat, "Hey, Javi.. I uh... You-" Javier noticed the bouquet of flowers and stood up,"Those for me?" Y/N' s eyes widen in surprise,"I uh... Here," he quickly thrusted the flowers towards Javier and looked away. Javier stared in awe from the gesture and gently took the flowers from the nervous man."These are beautiful, mi corazón. Gracias." Y/N smiled at his beloved and wrapped his arms around his waist. Javier buried his face within the large man's chest and sighed in bliss.

"Well look at this..." The men's eyes widen with shock and embarrassment as they detached from each other and saw Micah Bell smiling deviously at them. "The hell you want, you filthy rat," Y/N growled out. Micah held his hands up in defense,"Nothing... Nothing at all... Just watching the show, princess." Javier quickly dropped the flowers to the ground and restrained Y/N, as the man tried to lunge at Micah, who had been laughing to himself and walking away from the scene.

Javier dragged the man back to their shared tent. Y/N sat down, grumbling to himself. "Hey, what was all that back there, huh?" Javier questioned. "What do you mean?" Javier sighed," I mean you never let anyone get under skin, 𝑚𝑖 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑟... What's going on?"

Y/N sighed, "I'm sorry, Javi... I just... I don't know, I wanted to do something special for you 'is all..." Jaiver smiled at Y/N,"You didn't have to do that, 𝑚𝑖 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑟... Come on." Javier grabbed his love's hand and led him out of the tent.

He looked around to see if the coast was clear, Dutch had been talking to Hosea, Karen and Sean were drunk, Bill was screaming at poor Kieran, and Arthur was out with Charles "hunting". Everyone else was surrounding the fireplace singing songs. 'Perfect' Javier thought to himself. He quickly led Y/N towards Boaz and H/N, the two got on the horses and silently rode out of camp. "Where we going, Javi?" Y/N asked. Javier looked at the man and smiled,"Somewhere, mi corazon.. Somewhere"

The two rode all day, laughing, reminiscing about the early days of the gang, and about the future. " Y'know, Javi... Maybe one day, we can leave this life behind, settle down somewhere."

"What? What do you mean?

"Well, I want something better for u-"

"And leave our family behind? What would they do? They need us, Y/N."

"No, Javi, of course not. I'm not talking about abandoning them outta the blue... We leave when things settle down."

"I don't know, Y/N..."

"Look, let's not talk about it right now... Hey, you still didn't tell me where we're going."

"C'mon we're almost there, I think it's here up ahead."

Javier led his lover to the entrance of a heavily wooded area. "We should go on foot from here." The two dismount their horses and head towards the grove. Y/N was getting hit by random tree branches as his lover trudged him foward, he was quite unamused by the whole ordeal and hoped that the long ride and abuse by branches was worth it.

"There... There it is" Y/N heard Javier utter. Still holding Javier's hand, he walked up to see what the big fuss was all about. Y/N's mouth fell open as he looked on in astonishment, the view in front of him had been the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. There was a waterfall gently flowing into a pond that had green and yellow leaves floating on its surface. The water was clear and transparent, you could see the fish as they swimmed every which of way.

"You like it?"

"Like it? It's fucking beautiful!"

Javier chuckled at his boyfriend's remark, before his face fell.

"Mierda! Stay right here, I forgot it!"

Javier threw an apologetic look at a rather puzzled Y/N, before running back to Boaz. Y/N sighed and looked around to take in his surroundings. It was so peaceful and quiet here. A tree branched snapped, making Y/N flinch and reach towards his holster. He looked around and sighed in relief, it was only a doe getting a drink from the pond. Y/N watched the little doe silently, he wondered where it's mother was and why was it all alone?

Once again, Y/N was caught off guard by Javier emerging from the trees behind him with a blanket in his hands. "Sorry, I forgot the blank-" Y/N shushed him and pointed at the small creature drinking from across the pond. Javier and Y/N watched in awe as the creature finally stopped and look straight at them, before quickly scurrying away.

"So young, so graceful, so free"

"Kinda of like us, then?"

"Nope, you're too clumsy to be a deer, mi querido"

"Oh then what am I?"

"Hmmm, a bobcat"

"They're clumsy?"

"Sí and mean. Just like you"

"I'm not mean, I'm just being me!"

"Uh huh, if you say so, mi amor"

Javier layed out the blanket on the ground and sat down, he looked up at Y/N and patted a spot next to him. Y/N quickly lied next Javier and smiled warmly as Javier layed his head on his chest and sighed, he kissed the top of Javier's forhead before looking up at the sky. He savored moments like these, It made him forget the life they lived.

Soon, evening fell and the stars lit up the sky. The two were still cuddled up together, watching the stars twinkle. Y/N suddenly sat up and pecked Javier on the lips, before sighing out loud.

"Javier?"

"Yes?"

"Why me?""

"What?"

"Why did you choose me? Outta all the people in the camp? Why give me a chance?"

Javier let's the question sink in, before simply answering, "Because we're the same."

"What do you mean?"

"We've both been through a lot. Drove from our homes, left to defend ourselves, I like to think we were meant to be together"

"Like fate?"

Javier chuckled,"Yeah... Fate."

Y/N smiled to himself. Fate...yeah that sounded nice. After being alone for most of his life, he cherished the opportunity to build a future with Javier. Even though everything going on was confusing and hard, Javier made every thing seem alright...Life couldn't get any better than this moment.

"Y/N?"

"Yeah, Javi?"

"Marry me"

Or maybe it could...

#javier escuella #javier escuella imagines #javier escuella x reader #javier escuella x male reader #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2

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linkspooky · 5 years

Text

Eren is a Crying Child

Ymir in this chapter serves as a parallel for not only both Historia and Mikasa, but also Eren as well. The reason Eren personally reaches out to Ymir so deeply is not because Eren is Ymir’s savior, but because Eren is Ymir. When Ymir stops hiding her eyes and expression and reveals her true face, it’s important to see her for what she is: a crying child.

Which is what the framing of this chapter establishes, that Eren is not a great liberator. He’s not a badass. He’s someone deeply traumatized. His want to destroy the world isn’t about idelogy, he’s lashing out. Eren’s not being strong to become the hero who saves the world, he’s using the idea of his strength to deny his grief and any vulnerable emotion he can show because he thinks that he is not allowed to be weak. Eren tells Ymir that she is a human because those are the words that he most wants to hear. I’ll explain more under the cut.

1. The Cycle of Grief

Eren is fundamentally, down to his core, a child unable to cry or feel his own emotions. Because he believes he has no right to feel those emotions. That he has to push those emotions aside and be strong and fight back against the world at all times or he’ll lose everything. In growing up into someone strong, and forcing himself to always fight back against the world, he has lost a fundamental part of himself that Ymir represents, the child who just wants to cry. Eren is Ymir he is at the same time, crying and making an angry face because he feels so much towards a world that’s continually taken, and taken, and taken from him.

There’s a clear difference between the external goal which Eren does acknowledge, and the internal goal which Eren does not acknowledge. What Eren says he wants is liberation for the world around him, but what Eren seeks inside is his own liberation from the burdens that he’s put on himself.

Eren’s own internal conflict is a parallel for the conflict of the world at large, continually caught in the cycle of war and abuse that seems unending. Eren is also, constantly dealing with grief and loss that he is unable to resolve in any healthy manner of get closer on. Which is why his primary fear is the loss of his friends in the first place, because he cannot handle those feelings at all.

What Eren wants is peace, security, people who love him for who he is weak or strong, the things he had when Carla was still alive. But, he believes he can find those things in fighting. He wants the ability to see an end to the fighting, but Eren is so unable to comprehend something past that he thinks his own salvation is something as extreme as just destroying every single person who could ever fight against him to end the fighting permanently. Because Eren can’t properly see an end to fighting, without more fighting. So even if Eren is right that you do have to fight back, he’s also wrong because fighting back is the only thing Eren knows how to do.

Remember this is also literature, where parallels like that can be made. Eren’s fight against the world is simulatenously a fight against himself. Two classical conflcits, man vs society, man vs self.

Eren “being a badass” is most often him getting angry, and yelling to deny any kind of feelings of grief of remorse he might have, because in a way his mindset is too fragile to process any of those emotions. Yes, he does feel them, he’s obviously upset when his actions lead him to doing things he does not want to do like imprisoning his friends, and killing innocents in war but rather than handle those emotions he pushes them deep down and represses them. Eren is so “strong”, and yet he cannot handle any kind of show of weakness.

In terms of human psychology, Eren represents the grief cycle if he were permanently stuck in stage two, anger. Eren unable to even feel, feelings of loss denies them and gets angry and never once moves past that stage. It’s important to remember where Eren’s character is inspired from.

He’s not an action hero, he’s Shinji Ikari. It’s the same concept, a child is used by a world of adults because he has a special power that enables him to fight back, and he desperately searches for agency despite being stuck in a conflict that he was born into, and a system that continually exploits him as a tool for fighting rather than treating him as a human being.

He has a father who ultimately chooses to keep him distant and not tell him anything in the end (Grisha / Gendo), a mother who is the symbol to him of all the love in the world that he is unable to meaningfully receive ( Carla / Jaeger). The fundamental similiarity between Shinji and Eren even though one is passive (Shinji) and the other is active trying to steal away any meaningful agency and power away he can from the world (Eren) is at their core they are the same, both of them are fundamentally unable to handle this grief in a healthy way and thus they are incapable of meaningfully growing into fully rounded people. Shinji is permanently stuck in stage 3 depression and detachment, and Eren is stuck in stage 2 Anger, and yes Eren’s shows of strength, his anger at the world, his burning resentment and desperate fights for freedom may look cooler but they are fundamentally the same.

There’s no quote from End of Evangelion that better serves as a summary of what Eren says to Ymir in this chapter than this quote too, except, he is missing the second part.

Which is why Eren is ultimately wrong, and has to be wrong. In fighting the ugliness of the world he’s completely forgotten about the beauty. On one hand what Eren says to Ymir is good and right. She deserves to be angry about the world. She deserves to resent the people who have mistreated her. Her emotions, even the negative ones are all valid. She’s still a person after all this time, and her emotions are her own, even if they’re ugly, even if they’re vengeful, even if they’re destructive.

But at the same time Eren has a chance to show a little girl what’s beautiful about the world that’s completely mistreated her, and he tells her to destroy it instead.

Because Eren himself does not know any step in that cycle beyond anger. He does not know any response beyond getting angry at how the world has treated him. He lashes out, but he never has any meaningful closure, or any relief. Eren’s missing out on an oppurtunity to comfort a little girl because he’s lost all sense of comfort for himself.

That’s why Connie interprets what was Eren’s grief stricken face at Sasha’s death at laughter, because for Eren he’s pushed his emotions so far down now he can’t even cry properly when somebody he deeply cared about has died. This is not Eren being strong, it’s him coping terribly. The reason we’re kept out of Eren’s head, why we can’t see his own point of view is because Eren himself is restricting his point of view from the audience. He lies to his friends. He lies to himself. He goes that far, just to deny that what he feels inside isn’t just anger, but also sadness at the world, a want for comfort, etc. etc.

Eren’s feelings for wanting to lash out are completely valid. There’s basically no way to process that insane amount of grief without lashing out. My point is, Eren conceives of no step beyond lashing out, except to such an extreme that if he destroys everything he will somehow make the feelings go away.

He’s not being strong, he’s continually teetering on the brink of suicide because he’s completely forgotten about all of the beautiful things in life and what makes it worth living due to his decision to focus only on the fighting. In the same chapter we see Eren talk about the beauty of always moving forward, we also see the ugly side to it.

The same ideology that Eren must always keep moving forward, is also what drives Reiner to the brink of suicide. Reiner’s not a strong soldier like he pretends to be who fights to the end, he’s a deeply suicidal person who is desperately looking for some reason to live, to keep going.

But what continually pulls Reiner back isn’t the fighting itself, which is what Eren seems to think it is, that his solution lies somewhere in the conflict that he continually throws himself into. It’s the children. The eldian children that surround Reiner and Reiner feels responsible for, the one he wants to save from this conflict, the future that he himself does not have. Which is why Eren killing children is so thematically important, because Eren himself does not see that future.

Eren and Reiner are foils. While Reiner is clearly projecting here and telling Eren that the best thing for them is just to die already, to go to sleep, that that’s the only peace they can achieve in their life. If Reiner feels that way then it’s likely Eren is equally as suicidal as Reiner is. It’s just Eren has an objective that he has to complete, and that’s what is keeping him alive, and keeping him strong.

Also, the point once again Eren has never once beaten Reiner in the series. He lost to him several times over, and the reason why is because Reiner and Eren are the same. They both fight back against the world by denying that they are people and instead trying to conform themselves to some idea, Eren tries to become the ideal of freedom, and Reiner tries to become the ideal soldier. Eren cannot defeat Reiner because he is not any better than Reiner. Hence why, the one to defeat Reiner here is not Eren’s show of determination and strength, but rather his connection to Zeke.

The beauty of connection in a world that Eren only wants to destroy now. Which is exactly the point what Eren seeks is a release. He views the destruction of everything as a release for him, the peace he thinks he can never achieve in life through any other means. It’s the same suicidal mentality that Reiner has, it’s just a double suicide with the world. Eren would rather die a villain hated by the whole world, then try to live as a person with feelings.

Which is why Eren cannot save anyone in a meaningful way right now. He’s given the chance to empathize with Reiner, he’s given the chance to empathize with Zeke, he understands those ideas in his head and that other people have different point of views but ultimately he rejects it in favor of falling back on conflict, because conflict is all he knows. He’s afraid that if he mourns for even a second he’ll break down like Reiner and start begging for death. He sees that as his only two options, either die and be destroyed by the world, or keep moving forward and destroy the world.

2. Eren and Historia - Lashing Out

Lashing out is a part of the cycle of grief. You have to feel your emotions in some way, even if it’s selfish, even if it’s ugly, those emotions are always going to come out no matter how much you repress them. You are ultimately a person with your own emotions even if you deny that. However, if you just lash out with no meaningful resolution, then it’s easy to believe you’ve somehow cleared those emotions out and then just go back to letting them pile up again.

The parallel to Historia is right there. Life is not something that can be lived entirely for the sake of others. Historia is a character who repressed herself entirely, and tried to live completely as a good girl. She was so obsessed with being seen by others, she denied any selfish feelings that she might have. She denied herself as a person and tried to live up to an ideal instead.

Historia imitated the only person who showed her any kind of love, because she thought that was what others wanted from her. Nobody loved HIstoria Reiss the girl, nobody saw her as a person.

Eren udnerstands her because his method of coping is exactly the same. They both deny who they are as people, because so much of their identity is made up of the people around them, they love so deeply that they canont stand to lose them. Historia, and Eren both lost everybody so suddenly in their lives that they’ve never learned to process those feelings of loss.

Historia says it outright, when Ymir the one person who treats her as a person disappeared then Historia completely lost her identity and her sense of what she wants in the world, because she was depending on Ymir for those things and could not find it in herself.

Historia does not have a strong enough sense of self identity to know what she wants. She is like Eren, always putting on masks, always denying herself, and very conscious of the way she appears to others. Which is why Eren does the same thing, but Historia never quite catches onto that. The Eren whose always shouting about wanting to kill all the titans, he’s a fake. That was as fake as Historia’s good girl persona, but Historia herself does not quite understand that.

Eren full of insecurity and doubt, because he knows he’s still that kid who could not do a single thing in front of the titan that killed his mother, he knows he’s still that crying child and he can’t change who he is no matter how hard he tries. Reiner is the person who sees that. Historia fails to make that connection even when Eren sees that connection himself.

Which is why he also tells Historia the thing that he also wants to hear. That it’s alright for him to be normal. Yes, Eren does accept that he’s a normal person in this arc, but he also BACKSLIDES which is a thing in character arcs.

Historia herself is a character who goes through extreme bouts of selflessness followed by extreme bouts of selfishness. That’s what repression does, the more that she puts away her own selfish feelings and tries to live thinking only of others, the more she gets taken advantage of and used, the more those feelings of hurt and resentment pile up. It’s impossible for them not to.

Which is why what she says in this scene is both good and bad. Historia has to lash out because those feelings have to go somwhere, the problem is that after this scene Historia never makes any meaningful change on those feelings.

What Historia wants isn’t ultimately to be a good girl, or god, or even to be the enemy of the world because all three of those are roles to play not being a person. But they are fundamentally stuck in a system that denies who they are as people, and to cope with it Eren and Historia both deny themselves, and it’s a bad habit they fall back on.

Eren cannot save Historia, because Eren himself does not know the step beyond lashing out. He succesfully encouraged her to lash out, but in the most recent arc we see Eren and Historia despite all they have learned falling back on their old patterns. Historia lets herself be used by others as the queen and becomes entirely passive, Eren puts back on his facade that he’s confident and repeats what he said when he was younger to keep him move forward, but instead of destroy all the titans it’s not destroy all of mankind except for us.

Lashing out is soemthing necessary, but it doesn’t solve the problem ultimately. Historia, and Eren are two people who will ultimately backslide into where they find their identity, Historia finds it in living of service to others, and Eren finds it in conflict and war.

3. Eren and Mikasa - The world is Ugly and Beautiful

Once again returning to Mikasa’s lesson, the central theme of the series. That life is relentlessly cruel, but also it is something worth living. That is why there are always two sides of the coin, ugliness and beauty, why everything is far more complicated than simple black and white.

In this scene, Eren encourages Mikasa to fight and that’s important because otherwise they would have died, but lashing out is not the only thing that exists in this scene. Which is why both Eren and MIkasa are having problems remembering it in the future.

Mikasa focuses far too much on the scene afterwards because Eren wrapped the scarf around her. She wants to remember the beauty of the memory, the love she was shown, and not the violence. Because paralleling Historia, if Historia lives for other people, then Mikasa lives for one person which is Eren. Because she ignores her own individual will to live which was always there and is wrapped around the idea that living is living for Eren.

Which is why Mikasa is confronted with Eren’s violence, because it’s something she ignores. She wants to focus on the beautiful parts of Eren without looking at the ugly, and that causes her to idealize him and not see him as his own fully person. Which is Isayama’s point, it’s not one or the other, it’s both you have to understand.

Whereas, Eren himself does the opposite of MIkasa even though it’s a moment they shared together. He forgets the moment that he wrapped the scarf around Mikasa, the moment of resolution and connection afterwards because he thinks what saved her is the violence. He has also forgotten that she needed both, both the violent liberation and the lashing out to affirm her own feelings, but also the connection to another person and the comfort afterwards. Which is why we see Eren give such a meaningful glance at the part of the scene he’s forgotten.

The point being that Mikasa herself is unattaching herself from Eren, and coming along to a much more nuanced version of her feelings towards him due to their confrontation.

So we see the parallel to this scene. Eren liberates a little girl from slavers the same way he did with Mikasa so long ago in the past, and it’s a direct parallel because we are also reminded of this scene again one chapter ago.

However, unlike back then Eren offers her no comfort or connection. He encourages her to lash out with nothing else. He’s seen a girl miserable her whole life and instead of trying to comfort her in any way, he tells her to strike back against the world because that’s all Eren understands anymore.

Once again we see the parallel in how Eren and Zeke treat , but it’s important to remember that Eren is just as bad as Zeke. What they want amounts to the same thing, the complete destruction of a group of people. It’s also important to remember that Zeke and Eren are both themselves, completely unable to see themselves as people.

Zeke was raised as a child soldier, and he was only given birth to in the first place because he was meant to be used in another person’s plan to liberate the Eldians. No matter how he sees himself, either as the one who kills all of the Eldians, or doing what his father wanted him to do and liberate them, he is ultimately never seen as a person. Zeke cannot see Ymir as a person, because Zeke himself is fundamentally unable to see himself as a person. He’s never been treated as one, and in this moment he’s desperate because the father he wanted to acknowledge him finally said he was his own person only to task him with stopping Eren. Eren is just as bad as Zeke. Eren lost his mother, and his home, sense of security for three years and Eren’s way to deal with that was to do what Grisha did to Zeke, to himself. He denied he was a person in any way in order to deny the feelings of grief that came with the idea that he could lose everything at any moment, as suddenly and violently as he did with Carla. Eren too, is just like Ymir someone who feels like he’s never been free once in his life and therefore his only act of freedom comes in his decision to lash out against everything.

Eren sees himself in Ymir, someone fundamentally unable to be a person because of the sense of responsibility they have towards the world. That is why what he tells Ymir is something he utlimately wants to hear, that she is a person, that she does not belong to anyone.

But, Eren is the same as Zeke. That prevents him from truly sympathizing or saying anything affirming of life towards Ymir. Remember, Ymir is someone who was used and abused as a child. Eren thinks it’s perfectly okay to kill children and use them in that way if you get the end result you want, or at least he’s justified that to himself. He’s telling one girl the way the world treated her was wrong, when he himself has broken children in order to get what he wants.

Eren offers her the right to choose, but it’s very clearly a don’t do what my brother wants you to do, do what I want you to do instead. He says she’s free to choose, but he clearly wants to use her power to lash out against the world

He doesn’t ask her what she wants, he just gives her an alternative. Which is why a beautiful scene of Eren empathizing with a little girl and telling her she does not have to serve others, she has her own emotions, and she’s allowed to be angry at the world for how it ultiamtely mistreated her is also ugly.

Because Eren’s idea of liberation ultimately is just chains under a different name. He’s stuck in a cycle of lashing out in grief that he cannot escape from, nor can he help others get out of. He’s chained to his own emotions of anger, and hatred, because he ultimately is unwilling to let go of them and admit that he’s just like Ymir. That he’s that crying child too.

Eren can keep fighting, but he can’t overcome, and he can’t find any comfort in the world anymore, only more violence. Which is why Eren ultimately can’t save that little girl, only use her in the same way others have used her, use her power to destroy the people he wants to destroy. He an’t show her what is beautiful about the world the same way that he did to Mikasa once. He cannot reach out a hand to her.

Nobody wants me, they can all just die. Then what is your hand for, Eren?

#snk 122 #aot meta #meta #eren jaeger #ymir fritz #historia reiss #Mikasa Ackerman

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serendipitystyles · 4 years

Text

Pavement

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Warning(s): Mentions of drug abuse, cursing, destructive behavior, self-harm (y/n punches the concrete a few times)

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You met him in early October. That’s when you transferred from UCLA to NYU. He wasn’t the hottest guy in school, anyone would tell you that. And he had a little feud with your sister that could not be ignored.

But the moment you first laid eyes on him, you fell so deep in love with him that there was no way in hell that you were finding your way out.

Yeah yeah yeah, you were aware that the whole situation was insane. Love at first sight wasn’t real, was it?

No, it was just something that the human species came up with to feel less alone for a limited amount of time.

At least, that’s what you told yourself. You let yourself believe this so that you had a reason to push others away. Love wasn’t real. Whatever’s going on between us isn’t real.

And that protected not only you, but also your heart.

Because nobody can hurt you if you don’t let them close enough to.

But, God, he was different. So different that it scared you. You felt comfortable around him without having to question things first. You felt safe with him. For Christ’s sake, you even let him hug you. And you didn't do the whole physical affection thing.

Until him.

He quickly became your best friend. You talked all the time. You stayed up all night talking and texting and he seemed to make everything about your life better.

Any time that you would see each other, he would wrap his arms around you and you would just stay like that for what seemed like forever. Basically, until someone started talking to one of you.

And when that happened, you would, reluctantly, detach yourselves from the warn embrace that felt more like home than any place ever could.

But you were always touching.

Whether he had his arm around your shoulder or you were holding his hand.

There was always physical contact. And that, for the first time in your entire life, became important to you.

You began craving his touch when he wasn’t around, and savoring it when he was.

It was like you were addicted to him. And that almost scared you as much as opening up to him.

You had never been addicted to anything before, but you had been around people that had been. They seemed so happy when they were on the drugs, and so absolutely broken without them.

What if you were like that with him? What if he was your drug?

And what if one day, you had to be checked into rehab?

You had been thinking about this for a while.

Especially when you fought.

Like you were at this exact moment.

“You are so fucking impossible.” He’s pacing around your living room, hands pulling his hair, the curls had long since been screwed up.

“Oh, I’m the impossible one?” This genuinely makes you laugh, although it kind of sounds crazy because of how mad you are. “That’s really funny coming from you. All you ever do is complain about some chick hitting on you and how much it bothers you. Well guess what Peter? People find you hot. Ge the hell over it. Nobody gives a damn if you don’t like it. What are you gonna do? Fucking cry over it? it’s not my fault that people hit on you. So it isn’t my problem.”

A million emotions pass over his face. Confusion, betrayal, sadness, pain. But you don’t stop. Oh, no. You’re just getting started.

“And you know what’s even worse? All you do is talk about yourself. Like, yeah you’re a crime fighting spider boy. I’m sorry that we all can’t be as amazing as you, but you could at least listen. I try so fucking hard to talk to you about the important stuff. About how my mother just fucking overdosed and you won’t even let me cry about it. About how my sister literally won’t stop antagonizing me because I choose to be friends with you but you don’t give a shit. Well, you know what Peter? Maybe she’s right. Maybe you’re a lost cause. Maybe you aren’t worth my time.”

You don’t wait for him to respond. You know that if you do, you’re gonna break into a million pieces. And you cannot cry in front of him right now.

You turn on your heel and walk out. It’s your house, but you don’t want to be there anyway. You just destroyed the relationship with the person you called home.

You walk as fast as your little legs will carry you, all the way to the elementary playground a few miles away.

You sit on the swings, absolutely still, and cry. You cry until you can’t breathe any longer.

You can feel your heart breaking into a trillion little pieces. And you don’t know how to act. Everything’s numb.

Everything is cold and painless.

You thought that would make it easier.

But no, you realize, you deserve to feel pain. This is all your fault.

You drag yourself off of the swings and walk over towards the plot of cement that the basketball hoops are on.

Without so much as a second thought, you punch the cement that you’re sitting on.

Over and over and over again. You don’t stop. You can’t stop.

You keep hitting the court until someone pulls you away from it.

Strong arms embrace you and you breathe in the familiar scent of Peter.

“What did the pavement ever do to you?” he tries to make a joke to calm the sobs that you didn’t know you were holding in.

You turn around and bury your face in his chest, not caring if you get blood on his shirt.

“I’m so sorry, Pete, I didn’t mean it. I was just angry. I say things that I don’t mean when I’m angry. Please forgive me.” You beg into him, praying that some piece of him still cares enough.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” He’s rubbing your head, smoothing down the frizzy strands.

“What do you mean?”

“You were right. The girls weren’t your problem. They were mine. And the only reason that they were even a problem was because they weren’t you. I don’t care who finds me attractive if it isn’t you. I love you. I have since the moment that I laid eyes on you. I don’t know what my life would be like without you. I’ve taken you for granted and I don’t know if you still even want to be around me.”

“Of course I wanna be around you, dork. I love your dumb ass too.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Alright then, let’s get you home and clean up those hands.:

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dodstoldpackage · 4 years

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ANP (Apparently Normal Part) and EP (Emotional Part) are both heavily linked to the Structural Dissociation theory which you can find here. This theory is it’s own can of worms, but we’re going to focus on ANP and EP for this Dipper’s Guide.

“The "emotional" part of the personality. The EP is a manifestation of a more or less complex mental system that essentially involves traumatic memories. When traumatized individuals remain as EP, these memories are autonoetic for the EP, but not for the ANP. The memories can represent [pathogenic] kernel aspects of the trauma (Van der Hart & Op den Velde, 1995), a complete overwhelming event, or series of such events, and are usually associated with a different image of the body and a rudimentary or more evolved separate sense of self (McDougall, 1926). Thus the EP range in forms from reexperiencing unintegrated (aspects of) trauma in cases of acute and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to traumatized dissociative parts of the personality in dissociative identity disorder (DID; APA, 1994).”

“The "apparently normal" part of the personality. Traumatized individuals fail to sufficiently integrate current reality -- normal life -- as EP. As ANP they have failed to integrate the trauma, either partially or fully, and tend to be more or less engaged in normal life. The ANP is predominantly marked by a range of losses or so-called negative dissociative symptoms (Nijenhuis, Spinhoven, Van Dyck, Van der Hart, & Vanderlinden, 1996), such as a degree of amnesia for the trauma and anesthesia of various sensory modalities. The ANP is also characterized by a lack of personification, both with respect to the traumatic memory and with the EP. That is, the ANP has integrated neither the traumatic memory, nor the mental system that is associated with this memory. To the extent that the patient as ANP is informed about the trauma and about the EP, this knowledge remains noetic, and the relevant memories semantic, i.e., lacking personification.”

That’s how the paper that we’ve linked explains ANP and EP, but for a more simplistic version, here’s what the community seems to collectively agree are the definitions.

Emotional Part/EP: “For DID/OSDD-1 systems. These alters hold traumatic memory, often being stuck in the sensory experience of the memory and unaware of the passage of time. Tasks involving daily life are managed by ANPs instead, e.g., working, cooking and parenting. Despite their name, some EPs are not emotional. There is controversy surrounding this term, so it should be used with care and not applied to anyone else without their permission.”

Apparently Normal Part/ANP: “For DID/OSDD-1 systems. This is the identity who manages every day life and does not normally hold trauma memories. There may be more than one ANP managing daily life at any one time, each with different roles. An ANP may be emotionally unconnected to, or amnesiac for, past traumatic events. There is controversy surrounding this term, so it should be used with care and not applied to anyone else without their permission.”

However, as you can see, even the agreed upon definition doesn’t really give much credit to ANPs being their own person, still being called “the identity.” This is likely due to the way most of the psychology field sees those with DID and OSDD -- as parts of a “broken” whole that needs to be integrated. Whether that integration be into one core/original or just all of them coming together to form a “whole” with no specified core/original. While many of those with DID and OSDD may greatly benefit from integration that is not the case for everyone with these disorders. Healthy multiplicity should also be an option, but much of the psychology field and papers like the Structural Dissociation theory make it out to be something impossible to achieve. Let us not forget why MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) was changed to DID in the first place -- primarily it was because “personalities” gives too much personalisation and independency to each alter/system member or what psychology often sees as nothing more than a “part.” Those with DID are seen not a “multiple people” or even “multiple personalities” but a “lack of a unified identity.” (See also).

While many with DID may find this way of thinking helpful and beneficial, not all with DID (or that would fit the DID criteria) find this as helpful to them. Generalising something so complex as this is harmful. However, now we’re getting more into the general psychology of DID than what we set out to do today.

These terms, especially ANP, not only paint a “normal” way of living as strictly singlet (this is in terms of ANP and EP being applied to DID and OSDD), the papers and other aspects of psychology they are associated with also paint integration as the ultimate end goal of all those with DID or OSDD. The Structural Dissociation theory also seems to paint these “parts” as being the “normal” for those with DID and OSDD, which would also be inaccurate as well. Neither of these terms give any credit to the complexity of plurality or these disorders or the people who live their lives like this. It’s highly unlikely that a poll has ever been done when it comes to the individuality of alters/system members and how they might identify each other and themselves. Not to mention these terms are not just used for those with DID or OSDD; in the paper linked, it’s also used in terms of PTSD along with DES. Despite the fact that, while these disorders aren’t mutually exclusive, they do tend to present some different symptoms. Otherwise, why would we need to differenciate them with names and diagnosis criteria? So not only do they not acknowledge these different “parts” as having the ability to be idividuals, but they also use the same terms for very different disorders as well. It’s been said that this is the case because, in every trauma based disorder, there is often a state of reliving past trauma and being detatched from it. Often meaning many traumatised people go through these different states of being so to speak. However, that doesn’t mean that all traumatised people do.

Regardless, these terms are strictly based on observations and how the psychology field views those with these disorders, which usually isn’t a good view. Sure, some people may be slowly coming along but still not a lot of progress has been made and the representation in media really shows it. From “evil alters” to being seen as “different parts of a whole that just isn’t a unified identity,” good media representation is hard to come by regardless if the media is news or complete fiction. We’re not a disordered system, so our stance doesn’t matter too much when it comes to these terms in relation to what the community does as whole with them, if anything is or should be done about them. However, we will always be of the opinion that singlets don’t get to choose who we are and our terms for us. That’s why we make so many of our own terms. This post was made with the intention to let others know why many in the community view these terms as ableist and our personal take on them. Which, before anyone goes claiming that things like this can go for terms like System Hopping/System Travelling because they’re “abused,” no. Those terms (system hopping/travelling) were created by and for the plural community while ANP and EP were created by singlets for those with these disorders just based on observation. Alternative terms can always be made to encompass something similar to these as roles, however it is good to know that some systems out there do like these words and they can certainly reclaim them for themselves. Just be mindful that many systems don’t like these words as well.

Below the cut are image ids for those with screen readers.

[Image 1 ID: © Art Credit VixonRex on Deviantart (credit is for art of Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls). Today ON Dipper’s Guide to the EXPLAINED! The Ableistic Background and Connotations of the terms ANP (”Apparently Normal Part”) and EP (”Emotional Part”).]

[Image 2 ID: T chart; left side has “ANP” and right side has “EP.” Underneath are explaining some simple things about the terms that make them ableist.

Left: - “Apparently Normal” gives connotations that being plural can’t be a normal way of living one’s life. - Going indepth on what the term means; it also insinuates that being detached from trauma is the only way someone who’s plural can be seen as normal. - This also perpetuates the idea that “normal” people can’t or just don’t have trauma and that is entirely inaccurate. - The history of this term is also very ableist. Will go more indepth down below (below the picture but above these ids).

Right: -”Emotional” kind of holds connotations that other system members can’t have emotions or be emotional. It can also insinuate that the only emotion that plural folks feel are trauma based. While most people know this to be untrue, those who are ignorant and uneducated might take that to mean this or something similar. - “Part” is dehumanising and depersonalised. Both terms have this issue. - The history of this term is also ableist. Will go more indepth below (again, this was below the image but above these ids; before the cut.)]

#syscourse #anp #ep #structural dissociation #plural #system #long post

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scoobydoominuscoobydoo · 4 years

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Why do you hate Scooby Doo Mystery Inc so much?

Hate is a pretty big word that I really don’t like to throw around that often because to me it implies zero redeeming qualities and that it never should have existed. I don’t think the Scooby world would be better off if MI never existed because despite it’s flaws there was a pretty huge following for it in the beginning. It did something that wasn’t all that common for CN shows at the time and that was trying to take a more serious and heavy-handed approach to the Scooby gang’s lives. It also brought back the concept of an overarching story line that was pretty well done before it go so convoluted (the last Scooby show to do that was 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and that was back in the 80′s). It showed that the standard Scooby formula actually worked really well with this sort of set up.

It also is the best looking show and I really do mean that. The art-style is appealing to the eye and the color pallet was shooting for this whole neon noir that worked really well. The directing and camera work is set up like a teen slasher movie and it meshes nicely with the vibe the show is going for. The designs for the monsters are also pretty memorable from the first season and look great. Like I can remember most of the episodes from the first season simply because of the set pieces and monster designs (the episode where they end up in a house underground is one of my favorites aesthetically).

This was also the first series with Matthew Lillard as Shaggy since the 2002 and 2004 live-action films and he does a great job for sure. The performances from the whole cast are good as a whole (not exactly off brand for them).

There’s the episode “Night Terrors” that got like 11 year old me shipping Shaphne in the first place.

So there are definitely some things I respect from MI and I wouldn’t say that I hate the show. I think strongly dislike suits my feelings more.

Despite the fact that it did a lot for Scooby it also messed a lot of it up (this is coming from someone who watched it several times all the way through). The story got too complicated and there were a lot of unresolved plots and character actions that didn’t make sense.

I think the worst crime it commits - and the one that my animosity is directed at - is that it’s characterization was the worst out of all the shows. It tries to sell the gang as the town outcasts who only have each other but most of the time I can’t buy that they’re close friends because of all the times they just stop talking to each other. It really feels like they hang out with each other on accident and would really be with literally anyone else. Most of the first season just feels like Daph is there because Fred is there and she wants Fred to jump her so.

The gang’s relationship is a key element of every Scooby show and if you leave the impression that they aren’t that close than you’ve got five characters acting independently that sometimes solve mysteries together.

Not to mention how badly the gang themselves are written.

I’ll start with Shaggy because he’s my guy and his treatment in MI makes me sad. Overall, I think he’s the most “in character” out of everyone but that still isn’t saying much. A lot of his development is through either Scooby or Velma and the Velma development was handled as poorly as possible. I know this show came out during a period where putting the guy on the receiving end of an abusive relationship was funny but that doesn’t make it okay. It’s played for laughs but even when I was little I didn’t think Shag being in a controlling relationship was amusing. When he breaks up with Velma (for a completely valid reason that doesn’t even mention her abuse of him) he’s painted as the bad guy and it’s brought up for the rest of the show. That effectively ruined his connection with the rest of the gang and now he’s more or less just there. He doesn’t get any emotional heart-to-hearts or scenes showing his relationship with the gang (the most he gets is with Daphne ironically).

Most of the conflicts he alone faces are connected to Scooby or food and I feel like they could have explored so much more with him. Especially since that was the whole selling point of the show to begin with. The consistent fact that Shag is the glue that holds the gang together isn’t an element in this show either. I figured they might explore his obviously neglectful parents who still don’t seem too attached to the having a kid thing. But that didn’t happen and any outstanding Shaggy moments in the show aren’t as deep as the show promises.

Daphne easily gets it the worst. Her whole character is like completely dependent on Fred’s current attitude of her. Which is a shame because the show has these undertones of implying that Daphne is this eccentric, dorky, rich girl and I have no problem with that but nothing is done with it. Literally all of her characterization comes from Fred and any major development with her also comes from Fred. Season one her is pining for his affections relentlessly to the point that is seems kinda ridiculous. Even when they try and have Daphne “give up” on him she doesn’t even really do that. She’s just more inward about her feelings. I can’t even think of anything else to say about her because everything about her is just “SHE IS INTO FRED” in big red letters all over the story. I will mention that she is kinda sexualized in this show but it isn’t all that extreme. It’s not exactly illegal for a sixteen year old girl to wear bikinis (that she wears to get Fred’s attention of course). She did pull the teenager wearing lingire way before Riverdale did so props I guess (not really I still don’t understand the point).

It’s disappointing because Daphne is such a charming and lovable character in every show she’s in. Yet in MI she’s blown down to Fred’s arm candy and even when they promise to give her a character beyond that they really don’t. She falls back into the same relationship dynamic with him despite the supposed character growth.

MI Velma is given the backwards character arc of being the victim in an emotionally detached relationship. And it always confuses me because it’s obvious she had no interest in who Shaggy is because she wanted nothing to do with his life and kept trying to change him. Ironically she was trying to turn him into her arm candy and somehow convinced herself that he was the bad guy for not wanting to be that. The show wants you to feel bad for her because a boy chose a dog over her - but that isn’t even what happens! He states that he really isn’t ready for the kind of relationship Velma wants with him and that is painted as him choosing his dog. She holds that over him and Scooby’s heads for the rest of the show and I still don’t feel bad for her because she literally tried to force him to get rid of his dialogue quirk through physical harm. And he felt bad about it until the end of the episode????

When she isn’t abusing one of her best friends she’s usually talking down to all three of them because she’s perfectly aware that she’s smarter than them. Yet she’s the one who gets the most interesting story. Working for Mr. E and having an obvious lesbian relationship with Marcie are like actual things that progressed her character. Neither Shag or Daph get this treatment and they don’t even get any character development to begin with. But every time I finish the show I stay at the same conclusion that I don’t like her all that much. Her redeeming quality could be her brutal sarcasm but that’s a character quirk that doesn’t fix who she is.

Oh Fred, dear little Fred. The one with the actual character arc that remains consistent. His character just got regulated to the dude-bro of your dreams with a trap/ascot obsession??? It’s pretty jarring to watch because Fred from the older shows is like this sweet guy who tries to play the mature one in the group. And then MI took that and threw it away so they could turn him into Captain Oblivious who only notices his feelings for Daphne when she expresses even the smallest bit of disinterest in him (how many relationships have I seen like that irl? Too many). There’s also the unspoken rule that all Fraphne development happens through jealousy (it’s been that way since Zombie Island and is still a regular thing).

The thing is, there’s so much I could say about Fred yet not really all that much. He gets the most story and arguably the most screen-time. He prioritizes so many things over Daphne’s feelings for him and when they’re dating Daph states that she feels like one of his traps because he’s so controlling. He breaks her heart like it’s no big deal but then we’re supposed to believe he still loves Daph enough to actually stalk her?? The more I think about it the more shocked I get.

Actually, the more I talk about this show the more shocked I get. Mystery Incorporated has always been held to a higher regard as the best Scooby show. But that’s coming from the crowd that didn’t watch everything Scooby-Doo had to offer.

Aside from the great art and animation, the integration of a greater evil happening behind the scenes, and probably the best score as well, MI’s flaws outweigh all of the good things it brings to the table. I try to give it another chance and I am always disappointed because nothing is accomplished or done with the characters and that’s what I was promised. An overarching plot suggests character development and progression but we don’t get that. Instead we get the butchering of a cast of characters we love and a bogus ending that makes zero sense in the context of anything.

TLDR; MI sucks but I would still watch it everyday for the rest of my life if it meant I never had to watch Scoob! again.

#ask minus scooby #mod ninja #talking about mi just gets me disappointed #because shows with potential that was wasted bums me out #clearly the people working on this have talent #yet it doesn't amount to anything

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