#either way his trauma is such a gut punch for me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moongothic · 5 months

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Crocodile having such an explosive debut in his early 20s and such deep trust issues could also point to him having an even EARLIER start a la Shanks as an apprentice or something to an older pirate and their crew as a child/teenager — doubling down on the humiliation factor from facing off whitebeard as also a failure to “come of age” and broader sense of betrayal in watching eager encouragement fickly turn to “what did you THINK would happen”s like the kid who gets egged on by their peers into doing something dangerous and then immediately abandoned when they hurt themselves

Can't say if he did have like an early start for sure, since we really don't know anything about Crocodile's early childhood

But simply considdering how Oda typically layers backstories, I absolutely agree, I do think it's more than likely he has somekind of pre-Whitebeard trauma, be it either unrelated childhood trauma or early-pirating-life trauma (or something else)

Like the way Oda structures backstories, although we always remember like The Big Life-Changing Tragedy that happens at the end of the flashback, more often than not the flashback already begins with something horrible to indicate the character's already had a rough life

Robin was already alone, abused and rejected by most of Ohara even before the Buster Call Incident (followed by a life of running in fear for decades)

Franky had already been abandoned by his family before he lost Tom and got ran over by a train

Law had already lost his entire family before Doffy killed Rosi

Etc etc. Like not all the flashbacks are entirely like this, especially the East Blue-saga ones, but the backstories have been growing in complexity and structure, adding layers to the tragedies (like 🧅 onions 🧅) as the story has gone on

And with Kuma, his backstory doesn't end at two layers of tragedy. Like there's the early childhood tragedy of slavery, then there's the tragedy of losing his loved one in the most cruel, inhumane way possible, and we know there's at least one more gut-punch of a tragedy coming in the next two chapters to finish it all off

So with Crocodile especially I feel like... Like yes, possibly getting betrayed once in his life and having his dreams crushed by Whitebeard could break the man's psyche. But considdering just how seemingly broken his psyche might be, I do absolutely believe there's more layers here. Like his trust must've been broken more than once for him to end up the way he has.

Which alone gives Crocodad a bit more plausibility in my mind, because being rejected by the person you loved and trusted the most would most certainly break your heart (even if it was understandable why). And that really would make for a fine Final Nail on the Coffin for Crocodile's ability to have faith in others

But to really get that broken trust to be an on-going theme in his life that just happens again and again.... yeah it needs to start earlier

Personally, I think some kind of early childhood trauma would make the most sense, at least to me, not just because it could help Crocodile get started "on the wrong foot", but also because Rough Childhoods is just. A General Theme in One Piece lmao. Of course, it wouldn't be The Key Life-Changing Tragedy (I think Dragon would be that), just a "bad start"

#Moon posting #OP Meta #OP Spoilers #Sir Crocodile #Crocodad #Honestly this is kind of why I ended up becoming fond of the ''Croc is 1/4th merman'' idea #'Cause it really would like. Lay the basic groundwork for what's to come without it being like. IDK too much?#IDK I wrote a whole separate post about that not gonna go over the whole thing again #Other and one more plausible option was that he was just a really queer kid from the start and was bullied to hell and back for it #Dude just wanted to play pirates with the boys and kiss girls and everyone thought he was weird for it because he was a ''girl''#And somehow being called that stung but for reasons he couldn't understand (if Crocodad Real then he didn't Figure It Out until 27)#((Crocodile just seems bisexual as hell to me leave me be))#((I'm entitled to my unfounded bullshit headcanons until Oda gives us canon))#Alternatively if Crocodile WAS Xebec's kid then knowing his dad got ditched by Whitebeard and co would definitely leave An Impression #Especially if he ended up stranded and alone after God Valley #(...Unless... Whitebeard adopted him??? Which would be a very Whitebeard-y thing to do???????????)#((IDK I'm not into the Xebec theory)) ((It's plausible but it just doesn't spark joy for me))#((IDK I would prefer if he just kind of had a ''chill'' childhood kind of like the ASL bros had)) ((Just far lonelier))#((Especially since loneliness is such a key factor in so many characters and why they are the way they are))#((It's just that everyone else was able to find companionship somewhere eventually (be it thru Luffy or otherwise) but Croc didn't))#There's so many options and ideas on what could've happened we could stay here all day #Regardless of what it is- I'm sure Something Happened. Just gotta wait for Oda to tell us what #Asks

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bluebunnyears-08 · 1 year

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Fucking Crying Over Here About Prime Again (Yes I have An Obsession With This Show, So What?)

Did anyone else notice a sort a cycle with Sonic and Nine, or what hopeless situation Nine is trapped in? I mean I didn't at first but thinking about it now it's becoming kinda obvious.

Let me start with the pattern part first. When Sonic and Nine had that brief moment of trust and friendship Sonic was sucked into the shard away from Nine, leaving the kit alone, confused, and most likely worried and no doubt hurt. When Sonic and Nine end up in the Grim and Sonic chooses to go and help the rebels, leaving Nine alone again, leaving him with the horrible feeling of rejection and loneliness one more. And finally when Sonic goes to look for Nine he unintentionally leaves Nine once again at the mercy of the council.

Now you might be thinking, so what are you saying? Well, did anyone else pick up on the fact that it wasn't just a moment of events, but it was the fact that Sonic leaves Nine in an even WORSE psychological state the more he unintentionally gets pushed away (either by the literally universe, or even Nine himself) and repeatably abandons Nine?

In the first moment of unintentional pain, Sonic gets sucked into the shard, Nine being concerned, confused, and no doubt conflicted, being left alone to ponder in his own worries and thoughts, even after he escapes the council. (Another thing is how he abandoned the rebels and Rusty to find a way to find Sonic, mostly due to his nihilistic and loner mindset, but a small sliver of it might've been due to Sonic disappearing without a teace. The only person who was EVER kind to him)

The second moment leaves Nine even worse, Sonic gently shutting down the Grim DID NOT take away the pain and probable gut punch Nine felt. Nine noticably doesn't yell or snap at Sonic (his noticable changes I'll mention in another post). In fact he seems to bitterly try to swallow that rejection. He pushed himself away from Sonic in that moment, obviously trying to protect himself from the pain, letting him go back and help the rebels, not forcing Sonic to stay (even thought he could've easily done so, he didn't, which again, I'll talk about his noticable character change in another post). Sonic leaves and Nine is left with his own thoughts, to gulp down on that emotional pain on his own.

The last time is when Sonic unintentionally leaves Nine to be captured. From the scenes we see, Nine isn't having the time of his life. He's tased relentlessly, having to dealt with the fact that the person he saw as his only friend rejected being together with him, AND left him when he needed his help on top of that. Not to mention listening to plans of murder.

Imagine: You're an eight year-old child who's been bullied and ostracized by everyone around you, being abused and neglected for something you never asked for, then after YEARS of pain, isolation, and loneliness, you find someone who tells you of another life you could had, someone who shows nothing but selfless concern and care for you, and that same person gets taken right in front of you, leaving you confused, hurt and alone again for what was stated to be WEEKS. Then you build a space ship so you can find him, finding a home for the both of you, when you finally see them again though they reject your idea of a perfect world. In your head: they reject you. You let them go, deeply hurt, but come back to help, only to be captured by tyrannical dictators, abandoned again by the only friend you had. You now have to deal with the undeniable fact of them rejecting you, being stuck with cruel but idiotic dictators who talk about KILLING someone you thought cared for you, and even when you manage to pursue them against it, they talk about draining them, about essentially torturing them to death. ALL OF THAT combined with the emotional trauma of a year long abuse, living in a crap sack world of cruelty and misery, being alone, hated, AND continuously blaming and hating yourself for years, AND the future mental toll of the revelation that it took someone from ANOTHER WORLD TO MAKE YOU FEEL LOVED AND SAFE, BUT IT WAS ONLY BECAUSE THEY SEE YOU AS SOMEONE ELSE, SOMEONE YOU COULD NEVER BE.

It REALLY makes wonder how Nine hasn't fucking SNAPPED.

But something tells me season two is going to get a lot worse for Nine. This series is about Sonic going through redemption to save the world, and Shadows eventual realization that communication takes using your words than using your fists, AND questions just how far a super genius child's mental state and psyche can last when our through isolation, horror, and depression.

But hold on, because I'm about to make this so much worse.

Which brings me to my second point of this post.

I can't remember who rn (mainly because I'm tired as fuck and writing this at 6 in the morning) but someone mentioned something that got me thinking; Nine's entire goal, his entire dream, his SUFFERING is beginning to seem all for nothing.

If the theory that Sonic collects the shards and boom worlds fixed is true, what did Nine suffer for? What did Nine fight for? What did Nine keep going for? All of that pain, that isolation, that psychological horror he experienced and will probably continue to experience, all of his efforts would be for nothing. His goals will never be fulfilled, Nine will never be able to truly win. He'll never be happy.

Either:

He'd just fade from existence and merely become another trait in someone he desperately wants the life of and refuses to be known as.

He'd get rejected by Sonic and would have to suffer this revelation. HARD.

He'd find some way to force Sonic to stay, but in a world where the hedgehog can never be truly happy in (Sonic values freedom above anything else, not to mention his considering of his friends as his home and his insatiable thirst for adventure). And given how Nine seems to want BOTH of them to be happy in the Grim (given his uses of 'we' and 'our'), it would still be for nothing, not to mention it most likely won't make Nine happy either from the sheer guilt or self hatred he'd be in.

He could prevent Sonic from getting sucked into any more shards or in the ShatteredSpace, but seeing how Shadow found a way to escape the void, it wouldn't last very long.

He could find a way to join Sonic in his world, but either reality would collapse and all of them will die or he'd have to live a life being seen as Tails's doppelganger and not a true person, not to mention to undeniable jealously and emotional torment he'd face seeing the fox's and hedgehogs unbreakable friendship.

He could betray Sonic and take over the multiverse, but he'd be hated even more than ever, seen as a monster, not to mention it would completely ignore and trample upon his goals of wanting to be happy. He'd still be fucking miserable.

He could join the Council, but same problem as the one above, only this time he's still trapped in New Yolk with a bunch of cruel dictators.

He could sacrifice himself, but he might never find peace in even that, knowing he's just a mere doppel in Sonic's eyes, knowing his efforts were futile, still rendering his actions to nothing.

No matter what you think of, Nine is still going to be miserable, dead, or reduced to a possible fate worse than death. Nine can't be happy. He can't ever win.

(Which makes my constant tag of #NineDeservesToWinNoMatterWhat pointless too, but I'm going to continue to stand by this. He deserves to win, he deserves happiness more than ANYONE.)

But it's truly depressing that Nine is a person that nobody, not even Sonic, can save. In fact, while Sonic can help and give Nine the unconditional love and support Nine definitely needs, hes inadvertently making Nine's mentality worse not just by abandonment, but by his views of Nine as a doppelganger of his best friend and not his own person, which would undoubtedly take a huge chunk of Nine's psyche, his inability to accept Nine (both as this being a part of Tails, and also due to Nine being a Tails in his eyes, again he still sees Tails), his rejection of Nine's Haven, and the WORST PART OF ALL: Giving a hope that Nine can never grasp.

Sonic gave him a hope of palm trees and beaches. A world of joy and love. A world with Chillidogs and the two of them together. Forever.

But Nine can't ever grasp it, he can only claw and scrape the edges of it, he can only stare at it and make useless prayers for it to come to life. For once, Sonic's hope, his kindness, his friendship, but these normally good things only made things even more painful, even more hopeless, to the person who needs it the most.

And that's fucking traumatizing to think about.

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danses-with-dogmeat · 10 months

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Hihi! Caught you just in time to send in one request. Congratulations on your 1.5k followers! You worked hard for it ❤️❤️ Your writing is SO beautiful!

May I request mirelurk queen for MacCready, "c'mere you"?

Ahh, thank you so much! <3 And absolutely, this is just precious with sweet Maccy. 🥺

It turned out more hurt/comfort than just fluff, but still, cute and (eventually) happy and lovely and Mac. What more do you need to know?

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

The frigid nighttime air felt like a punch in the chest with each heavy inhale, and MacCready's knuckles cracked painfully as he clung to the railing of the porch outside your Sanctuary home.

"This has gotta stop." He whispered, tilting his head back to look up towards the stars. Puffs of his warm breath spilled out into the air, shielding the bright, shimmering speckles from his sight with the haze. The wetness in his eyes only made matters worse, his unshed tears cooling with each moment he spent outdoors, away from his warm place in bed beside you.

He couldn't go back in yet, though. Couldn't wake you when you slept so peacefully. Between the two of you, your pasts, your traumas, your loss... Deep sleep was hard to come by, and he couldn't steal even one precious wink from you, on account of his own nightmares.

Especially when it was the same as always.

There were variations, sure, but this one... This one had left him not only with the overwhelming panic and grief, as his memories of that fateful night with Lucy and Duncan always did, but it left him with a crippling guilt that stuck deep in his gut. It was uncomfortable, churning out memories and wishes, thoughts and hopes all surrounding the son he hadn't seen in... over a year now. If the letters were sound, then Duncan was alright, the cure was beginning to work, but still, he was too weak to travel, they'd said. On the surface, he was getting better, but healing was exhausting work, especially for someone so young.

And what the heck was he doing? It had been over 200 years, and you had seen your son more recently than he had.

That was just sad. It was pitiful.

Mac shook his head as his hands turned numb where they grasped at the wooden railing.

"Poor excuse for a father..." He growled through his teeth, a disgusted look surely hanging from his face as he thought of his priorities, of his actions these past couple months.

Months.

I could've been there and back twice by now, if I'd left right after sending the medication.

What am I doing?

"You okay?" Your sleepy voice sounded from the threshold of the front door as you peeked out at him.

MacCready almost jumped at the sound, too lost in his own thoughts to have noticed your approach.

"Y-yeah." He stammered out, "All fine. Just... Y'know."

"Yeah." You said, your voice sympathetic. Knowing.

He continued looking out into the darkness, towards the rest of Sanctuary. Then he felt your arms around him.

Your chin rested on his bony shoulder as your hands wrapped warmly around his waist, causing a chill to run up his spine from the sudden temperature change.

"Don't wanna talk about it?" You asked him softly.

MacCready shook his head before allowing it to tip sideways, bumping affectionately into yours.

"Mkay. Well, I'm here for you, either way."

His breath released shakily at that, and MacCready closed his eyes, leaning into the feeling of your warmth against him.

"I know, Sole..."

He almost left the next bit unvoiced, the thought that was lingering at the front of his mind, but it slipped through like water between grasping fingers. "But maybe you shouldn't be."

"Hm?" Your head snapped backwards, forcing his own to jerk as it lost the point of contact on which it was resting.

"I don't know..." He continued, "I just... I know you're here for me. You're here for me, and you're there for your son, even after everything, after 200 years and him being older than you now, even with the Institute and all the crappy stuff they've done, you still talk to him, still see him. A-and you're there for Preston, and Cait and Curie and Nick, with all of their own problems, and with all of your own still, too, and just... How the heck do you do it, baby? When I can't even-- I've only got one person, or um, two now, I guess, but even when it was just Duncan..."

His sleep-addled brain could hardly keep up with his mouth as it poured the thoughts from his head unfiltered.

"Woah, Mac, sweetie, just slow down." As if to prove a point, you slowly unraveled your arms from around him, encouraging instead, for his body to face yours as your hands grasped his own. They were icy to the touch, and you rubbed your fingers over them to bring the feeling back.

"Duncan knows how much you're doing for him. He knows that you had to leave in order to help him. And I know, too. I know how much you care about him, I see it every day, hear about him every day, see the way he makes you light up. Even just the mention of him. And me? You wanna know how I help so many others, how I was able to stay strong as I went into the Institute, how I made myself cope with Shaun being so... well, not what I expected?"

MacCready shrugged at your question, ocean-blue eyes still downcast.

You released his hands, moving to hold the sides of his face between your palms, pouring emphasis into the tender caress.

"It was you, Robert. I saw you, struggling for everything out here in the Commonwealth, scraping together caps and false leads on a medication that maybe didn't even exist, all for Duncan's sake. I saw you missing him every day, but still working tirelessly to save him, to see him again one day. And then, even after you mailed the cure out, you put that off."

He flinched at that statement, but your hands stayed glued to his cheeks.

"You put that off to help me, and I... It couldn't mean more to me, okay? I never would've... Seeing the way you always thought about Duncan, with every decision you make, the way your love for him bleeds into everything you do, even with how far away he is, that made me want to be a better parent to Shaun. Whether he was the baby I remembered, or the child I saw in Kellogg's memories, or the older man he turned out to be, I wanted to be there for him the way I saw that you were there for your boy."

You noted the way his lip quivered, the way his eyebrows drew together beneath his sleep-mussed hair, and felt relief flowing through you at the thought that your words were getting through to him.

"You inspire me, Mac." Your thumb wiped away the lone tear that rolled down his cheek. "Every day, you make me want to be better, and you've helped me with... everything, more than you could know."

As though one of you had offered it aloud, both you and MacCready leaned into each other at the very same time, falling into another warm embrace.

"I was so lost out here in this new world, until I found you. I wouldn't be half of who I am now, without you being there for me." You told him with a sniffle, your voice heavy with emotion.

"Okay, okay, lady/man! You can stop now." Your partner chuckled tearily, his chest trembling against yours. "I'm already crying, you don't need to keep droning on."

Your shoulders shook as you returned his laugh, still holding onto him tightly.

"I didn't mean to make you cry, I just wanted to tell you the truth."

"'Didn't mean to make me--' okay, yeah, whatever you say, Sole."

You giggled again, before pulling away.

His eyes were startling, even in the darkness of the late night. The tears brought out their sheer, sapphire vibrance, and you found yourself lost, awash in them as he looked at you with such fondness.

"Thank you, though. It really... I needed to hear it. My dream, just made me feel like shi-- ahem, like crap."

You nodded knowingly at that.

"You miss him. I think you're just trying to compensate it for it when you're asleep."

"Maybe." He shrugged. "I do miss the little rascal... But we'll see him soon, right?"

You smiled sadly, grabbing one of his hands with your own again as you nodded vigorously to him.

"You just say the word, baby. We'll go tomorrow, if you want."

He grinned, broad enough that his crooked teeth peeped out from between his lips.

"Tomorrow, eh?"

"That's what I said, right?"

"Sure is..." With that, Robert leaned forward, pressing a light kiss to you briefly. "I love you, you know that?"

Your eyes shone as you looked into his, seeing his own truth reflected there, and you nodded to him.

"I love you too." You echoed sweetly, "Now, c'mere, you. Let's get back to sleep. Big day tomorrow, after all."

You started pulling him along with you as you stepped through the front door and back into the house.

"Sleep? After all that? You're crazy."

Though he couldn't see it, you rolled your eyes at him playfully.

"Okay, maybe not sleep. But... cuddling, then. At least."

"Oh yeah, I can get on board with that."

#1.5k event #1.5k celebration #fallout #fallout 4 #fallout 4 companions #maccready fo4 #rj maccready #fallout maccready #maccready #mirelurk queen

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lowcountry-gothic · 1 year

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I just finished season 7 of my Dexter rewatch, and wow, that gut-punch of a scene. I always thought of it as a plot twist, a surprise, as the episode’s title—“Surprise, Motherfucker!”—would suggest the viewer is meant to think about it, but this time around, knowing what’s about to happen, it feels inevitable. As if there were nothing else that could possibly happen. And I’m rethinking the way I view this entire show. The first time around, when it was first airing, I always thought of Dexter Morgan as an antihero, someone like Batman, who achieved justice where the system failed, albeit a much more bloody and violent justice. Now it seems clear to me that Dexter isn’t an antihero, and almost certainly isn’t meant to be one by the writers. He’s the main figure in a sort of modern day Greek tragedy.

The tragedy of what happened to his mother, sure, and the trauma her death caused, and the way it made him fascinated with blood and death...that much is obvious. But what I’m seeing now are things that, for whatever reason, escaped me before. Things like his adoptive father seeing this fascination with blood and death and, instead of treating it as an unhealthy coping mechanism for his trauma, seeing it—and more tragically, explaining it to Dexter in such a way that he believes it himself—not as something he could possibly heal from, but as a fatalistic, permanent, and defining aspect of who and what Dexter is. Harry’s belief that Dexter just isn’t normal, and never can be, and the way this shaped Dexter’s own sense of himself and the possibilities his life could hold. The way Harry uses Dexter to fulfill his own cop vengeance fantasies that he can’t enact, and the way that Harry’s subsequent suicide makes Dexter feel like it’s all his own fault.

And there’s the fact that Dexter builds a normal life for himself first as a mask to hide what he thinks truly defines him, but doesn’t even question the idea of this side of his life as “false” until midway into the show, when he begins to see that he is just as capable of meaningful human relationships as anyone else is, and that his brokenness isn’t something unique to him but a feature everyone shares, though in much less extreme ways. How he only realizes, after so much personal loss and tragedy, that his “need” to kill is only a passing emotional state that doesn’t control him, and the way he only realizes this after so much killing when it’s too late to live a life uncomplicated by murder and criminal guilt and murderous habits.

The way he, based on Harry’s beliefs, makes decisions and prioritizes things in ways that seem very small at first, but it’s soon obvious, cumulatively, that he’s unintentionally hurting those he loves in ways that don’t stab but cut like paper.

And the way his ultimate decision that his “fake” life—his career and relationships—is the most important thing to him, and he doesn’t want to lose it, the way this realization comes too late because at this point he’s already given up so much to the altar of his hidden life that so very little of the “normal” life he now values so much is even left at this point.

And of course there’s Deb, and her love for him, and how it causes her to make so many bad decisions, so many instances of giving up her own self for him, and the way this culminates in such a horrifying way for her at the end of season 7—we’re not really even sure if the shot was intentional or an accident, but that doesn’t matter, not for her. It’s so tragic. And the way that she’s so overcome by horror and grief, for herself and for Laguerta, and the sheer agony evident on her face as she breathes, “I hate you,” a line that not even the subtitles caption—you just have to pay attention and listen or be able to read her lips—Damn.

And above all, how things didn’t have to be this way. If Harry had had more faith in Dexter as a child. If he hadn’t—just like a cop—believed that people’s dark sides are the most important things about them. that people are either good people or bad people and that the former need to be protected from the latter at all costs.

How could anyone see this show as being about Dexter’s little darkly comic adventures and the way he forges his own deadly brand of justice, and not about how his entire life, and that of everyone he becomes important to, is just one sad, devastating story after another????

#text #mine #dexter #rewatches #dexter rewatch #dexter morgan #debra morgan #harry morgan #maria laguerta #rita bennett #tragedy

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mx-ryder · 2 months

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Some thoughts on Hazbin Hotel

I literally just watched HH this week, followed by binging Helluva Boss on YouTube right after. And my Dash is full of HH and HB stuff now. And the other day I saw someone posted their thoughts on the show, including one specific take that it falls right back under the typical "Sinners are bad but hey, we can fix them!" sort of trope. (I really don't know if I'll be able to find the post again, if I do, I'll reblog/link it here or something).

And hey, I'm not gonna argue that it doesn't, per se. I just think there's a bit more to it than that.

c.w for general religious trauma talk, SA mentions, drug use/abuse, alcohol use, addiction, gambling, probably other things I'm not thinking of

(Also please don't feel like you have to read this. It's literally just me rambling because I haven't been able to stop thinking about this topic all fucking day, so I wrote it down to get it out of my head. Obviously if you read it and want to comment/continue the discussion, feel free. Just please. Be respectful.)

Now.

All my thoughts on HH are very much colored by my past experiences with religion, US christianity, specifically. More specifically still, the sort of christianity that makes people believe that "home schooling" their kids, isolating and indoctrinating them away from anyone who might make them question it all, is the best course of action. I grew up bouncing from church to church, from home schooling co-op to co-op, all so my bio-mom could find the exact group to echo her own sentiments back at her.

Among the things I grew up believing were great ideas such as:

Sexuality is inherently disgusting, and something you should always be forcing down/avoiding/punishing yourself about. Masturbation, porn, sex before marriage, dressing "immodestly", and any sexuality outside of heterosexual were inherently evil and worthy of punishment. Sometimes that punishment was being assaulted, because really, she should've covered up, right? Girls, sometimes girls as young as 12-13 (if not younger) were villainized for wearing tank-tops and shorts, because they were causing the boys to stumble and immodesty was a moral failing on their part.

Drugs, alcohol, substances in general, are bad and wrong and using them, or heaven forbid becoming addicted, is a moral failing on your part. You are a bad person for consuming a drug, and therefore deserve to fall into addiction, houselessness, starvation, and/or abuse.

Poor people deserve it. Accepting help of any kind is leeching off good, hard-working people. Your worth as a person is directly tied to your ability to be a "productive member of society."

Any mental health issues are your fault, and are either because you don't believe in jesus hard enough, or because you're inherently broken and sinful and therefore unsaveable. There is no room for sympathy or empathy for anyone struggling.

There's a reason these are the same stereotypical archetypes you see in this sort of show. The queer sex-addict. The gambler. The "weirdo" who isn't like other people and enjoys "weird" things, or enjoys things "too much". Even just the party-girl character. Because these aren't just stereotypes. These are actual entire groups of people who are ostracized and vilified just for being who they were born to be, for making choices christians don't like, or for being sick.

And that brings me to Angel Dust. Who, by the way, I wish I could've been given a content warning about, because holy shit Ep 4 and Addict hit me really fucking hard. My friend recommended the show to me without having watched it, so I went in not expecting that sort of storyline to punch me in the gut out of nowhere.

Anyway! Angel Dust! Literally named after a drug. A gay porn star who flirts shamelessly with anyone and everyone, who proudly shows off his best films to his friends, who secretly hates his job, not because of the sex, as we come to find out, but because he's under the thumb of a fucking psycho who treats him like shit and actively physically, sexually, and mentally/emotionally abuses him. He's basically been trafficked, and hates that he doesn't have any say in what happens to him in front of the camera. It's a horrifying position to be in, and one that left me a little shaken up, tbf.

The take I'm mostly writing this based on is that Hazbin Hotel falls into the trite tropes of "rich white girl attempts to fix people who are below her" and specifically mentioned disappointment in how Charlie didn't try to argue that Angel Dust didn't deserve hell based only on his addiction or sexual past, but that she instead claimed that she could "fix him."

And I just . . . think that's a little bit of a black/white take.

For the first part, what would people rather she do? Put all her time, effort, influence, and power into trying her damnedest to help her people, who are being slaughtered by the thousands every year just because Adam is bored? Or sit at home and use all that time, effort, influence, and power to make rubber duckies like her father? She could just ignore everything going on, call it hopeless, give up, and ignore the suffering of her people. Would that be better? Would that satisfy this weird little "she's just a rich white girl with privilege" gripe?

Charlie is a rich girl. A princess. Someone with huge amounts of privilege, power, influence, etc. But you know what? She's also stuck in hell. She was born there, through no fault or choice of her own, and because of who her parents are, she is trapped in literal hell, with no hope of ever, ever ascending to heaven. She does not get a chance at redemption, because she was born to the wrong people. She is a young woman who was born into horrifying circumstances, living in a world that she frequently expresses disgust for (her frequent discomfort with sexuality, her disgust toward the cannibals, her dislike of violence, even necessary self-defense).

And she still loves her people and wants to see the best in them.

She would be completely justified in hating everything about hell, her life, the people around her, her parents, heaven, everything, really. She has every right to hate her entire existence, but she puts all that hatred for the system into her efforts to fucking do something about it. Why is that a bad thing, just because she was born into a position of power and authority??

And now on to Angel Dust.

Charlie never once makes a judgement call about Angel or his habits, his work, or his personality. She expresses discomfort with the sexual nature of his work (tbh wouldn't be surprised if she's a sex-repulsed ace), but she does not think he's a bad person because of his work. Nor does she think that he needs to stop doing his work in order to become a better/good person. When she tries to get him some time off, she's explicitly doing it because she wants him to have time to decompress and participate in activities at the hotel, not because she wants him doing less of his specific kind of work.

She never condemns his partying, either. She has a bar in her hotel! She defends him partying, right to heaven's face, because she knows everyone present has partied, everyone has enjoyed a drink with friends. There is no condemnation of his partying activities, and I don't think she ever makes it seem as though Angel needs fixing.

What I got out of that episode, watching Charlie passionately defending her friend in front of the worst fucking person in the universe, was that people do not need to be fixed, but some love and support can help them make better choices for themselves. Angel still has a good time. He still has his job (contract, y'know, but would probably be in the industry regardless). The only thing different about that particular night of partying is that he's out with people who care about him, and who he cares about.

Even Cherri, though she expresses some joking disappointment that he's spending so much time worrying about Nifty, doesn't actually seem that put out by it. She teases him a little, but leaves him to do his thing. And his thing is making sure his friend, who is less experienced at partying (and who is significantly smaller/more vulnerable than most other people), is safe and okay. His thing is defending his friends from an extremely dangerous person, at massive risk to his own personal safety.

And he didn't do any of this because he'd been "fixed" or because he'd "changed." He did it because, for possibly the first time ever, he has people around him who love and care for him, and who want the best for him. And who he loves and wants the best for in return. He said himself that he stays out of his mind on substances, allows himself to be drugged and assaulted, puts on this persona of care-free-crack-whore-who-only-thinks-about-sex, because he is trying everything in his power to dull the pain he's in. Because he doesn't believe he deserves any better.

And this, this is what Charlie is trying to show Heaven. She is trying to show them that there is nothing morally damning about alcohol consumption, or even drug use, sex work, or anything that makes Angel who he is. She's trying to show them that, with some love, care, and support, with a safe place to call home, with their base physical and emotional needs being met, people don't need to resort to the sort of destructive behavior heaven/Adam is condemning! People can choose to engage in these behaviors safely, consciously, and with people around them who want them to be safe and have a good time.

Then we get on to the idea that this entire episode ends on. Heaven doesn't know how people get there. They don't know what it takes to be "good enough" for heaven. Sera herself admits that Adam was just "the first soul in heaven," all but admitting that he's just there because he defaulted into it. (Though that does make me wonder, what about Abel? He would have died long before Adam, and considering how long Adam lived, and that there were plenty of other people around by the time he would have died, where were all those souls going??).

And Adam is the fucking worst! He is literally the worst, most selfish, violent, vulgar soul in the entire show, but he is allowed in heaven, for reasons no one even understands.

You know what the difference is between Adam and Angel?

Adam can't be fixed.

His behaviors are all destructive, not to himself, but to others. He insults, abuses, hurts, and kills with abandon. He made this weird, shitty deal with Hell and Lucifer because he wanted to murder innocent souls, because he was bored, and the rest of heaven doesn't even know about it. He has free reign to be an absolute piece of shit to everyone around him, damaging people left and right, and he will never face any sort of justice for it, because hey, he's already in heaven!

But Angel? Angel's behavior is all self-destructive. Again. He gets fucked up to dull his immense pain. He allows himself to be drugged and assaulted because he believes he deserves it. Because he's been told, for who knows how many thousands of years, that he's a whore anyway, so why shouldn't he be free to use for anyone who wants to take him? He has been beaten down, physically, emotionally, sexually, until he's a shell of a person who is struggling to find any reason to continue his shitty existence.

And he hurts only himself.

I mean, okay, he does piss off Husk sometimes, crosses boundaries/etc. But he and Husk pretty clearly fix that between themselves. There's no lasting damage there, and idk if anyone else noticed, but he stops that behavior pretty much entirely after that ep.

Angel is hurting. He is hollow, and hopeless, and trapped. And he does not need to be fixed, nor does Charlie ever attempt to do so.

All she does is reach out a hand, and say, "Hey, I see that you're struggling. This place is fucked up, isn't it? Maybe I can help."

Charlie is a flawed person. She takes her privilege for granted. She feels the immense weight of her choices, and the pressure of having taken responsibility for a people who may never want her help. She messes up, because somehow, she's endlessly cheerful and optimistic, despite her upbringing and the world she grew up in.

Charlie is flawed. But she's trying her fucking best. She isn't trying to fix. She's trying to help.

We all need some help, every now and then, don't we?

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columbocorners · 7 months

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hola! I loved your little nightmares Otto ramble! Like you can tell that the world they live in is already messed up the patients being so separate stuff like that. Giving the adults more sympathy and them also being victims in both tson world and the world of nowhere is just so much nuanced then kids good adults bad! But anyway I’d love to hear your Otto ,noone or any ln hc

you have!

HONESTLY THATS WHY I KEEP GOING ' I just don't see otto as a bad person ' because in spite of every little thing that this man has done it is rooted in the fact he couldn't get over a trauma and he has to live with that daily. to me, there is obviously a lot of characters in the games who've displayed signs that they're not all entirely good, but then moments where none are entirely bad either. mind you I feel like I'm one of the few people who also think about six's betrayal and go ' in her perspective, it was understandable ' because no one ever really thinks about how she saw mono's face, in spite of the fact that her being transformed into a monster was as horrible as it was, she was comfortable and safe for one of the few times in the game beyond the start, it was an imprisonment that she could at least respect, so mono " saving " her from becoming a monster, and then seeing his face and knowing he was ultimately just the thin man all along was really a gut punch of her having her world crashing down, and in general I feel like to some degree a lot of the people who become monsters within the realm of TSON / LN really become DIFFERENT people, they always have, so not only was six vengeful but, she wasn't entirely herself after that. you could chalk up the monsters like the teacher as being potentially at one point normal, because she still engages with a lot of the habits a teacher does but then it's like, is she? because she still is very aggressive, in ways a teacher shouldn't be, she morphs, all of that, and it's just odd. this world not only brings about nightmares but it twists people the longer they stay there and it has always been the adults in some means but it just as much the children, because to put it bluntly : all of them have the capacity to become worse people, within any time of their lives.

it's just those who haven't are likely the most lucky ones, and to me otto is probably the BEST person we could ever get who genuinely is just good who isn't a child, and I feel like people need to understand, he is so shitty, but he is nuanced in what he does. his comfort to noone is as much projecting as it is he genuinely cares for her and he can't help but project in my eyes because he sees' someone experiencing that all and just does not want to go through it again. noone and otto are kind of trauma bonded like that to me. but otto goes so far, he mixes his own desires of wanting things for himself between wanting to help noone and it shows. going, " he is your tormentor " in ways whereas noone is and isn't tormented. she is not afraid of the ferryman / the candleman. otto is, he always has been, and he just merges that idea into one. all of his actions are attempts to try and do better, and honestly like : one of the things I genuinely always thought of as like ' otto just wants to try and do better ' is the fact he did not tell noone about her tumor. yes, she did need to know but after all was said and done, they'd been arguing and he had no real way to bring it up and he still wanted to find out what was going on with the nightmares, with cece, so how could he? and also it's like, that is something that ultimately needed to be looked into because it was a spiral-like eye tumor in her BRAIN, like dude. yeah, I do think that's cause for concern, and he doesn't have this sort of ' oh I win ' attitude when she finds out, he's as cold as he is really upset to me. and it's why after all is said and done, he tried to at least still do an experiment while she was asleep at least to figure out for himself what was going on and honestly idea because I think of it : the flesh eyes from little nightmares 2 which are connected to the thin man, I feel like they're infecting noone's brain because it is so SPECIFIC to have noone getting a tumor as a result of the constant nightmares like the flesh is literally taking over her body from the inside the more she has them and doesn't allow the ferryman to take her. so, it's like, I feel like something will happen to otto but I feel like something WAY WORSE is going to happen to noone. because it kind of adds up especially with the way otto had an interaction with an eye on that monitor and freaking out the way he did and the thin man's soundtrack song lightly playing in the background of that.

part two of this because I wrote a lot

#little nightmares #the sounds of nightmares #rambles #tson #tson rambles

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alwaysbeyondhope · 10 months

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Chess at The Muny

(no read more breaks I’m too old for that nonsense)

So it’s not a secret that I love Chess. Florence Vassy is my all-time favorite musical theater female lead. Chess is my favorite musical. I’m so in love with the music, I love the doomed romance of Florence and Anatoly. And some of my favorite musical theater loves (Carolee Carmello, Helen Sjöholm) have played Florence.

I traveled to St. Louis on Friday to see the show Saturday night. I ended up getting a last minute ticket to see the show again Sunday night (because I have no chill and because I’m so in love).

The show was FUCKING AMAZING.

Apart from a few cut verses and altering song order, Chess at The Muny was very similar to the West End / 2008 Royal Albert Hall layout. It was a fully staged show, not a concert, and it was brilliant.

What I absolutely loved was the almost complete absence of a book. Chess has always struggled with a good, solid book, but I really don’t think it needs one. Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus make some of the greatest music in the world - let that music come through. With Tim Rice’s lyrics (and Björn’s assistance - Tim did not write those lyrics on his own) the show is best performed in a rock opera style.

The Muny knew and understood this. Dialogue was brief - some spoken instead of where it had been sung in other versions, some dialogue inserted in just the right place to get the point across - but nothing that relied on a book to move the show forward. It doesn’t need it.

The venue is gorgeous for an outside amphitheater. The stage included a revolving checkered square with stairs and risers. There was a huge screen at the back and two thin screens on either side of the stage. Those were utilized so well - the thin screens showed the hand fidgeting and coughing, etc during Chess #1, while the main screen showed the actual match. There were minimal set pieces - wooden boxes on wheels to be used as chairs / airplane seats / furniture.

The cast was just amazing. Phillip Johnson Richardson plays The Arbiter, balancing the no-nonsense role with the dance moves and swagger that the part requires.

Tally Sessions plays a wicked Molokov, pulling strings and not pulling punches. Rodney Hicks is a perfect Walter de Courcey.

Jarrod Spector was Freddie, playing the petulant man-baby with some legit childhood trauma. His Pity the Child was wonderful - the right amount of self-loathing and pity and bitterness and anger, without being too sympathetic.

Taylor Louderman was Svetlana. I’ll admit that seeing her Saturday night was a little underwhelming for me - I didn’t think she shined as much as I wanted her to with Someone Else’s Story, but she got me with I Know Him So Well, and I thought her performance Sunday night overall was better than Saturday. The back and forth with I Know Him So Well brought things back for me.

John Riddle was Anatoly. I knew nothing of him going into the show. He absolutely blew me away. Where I Want to Be was powerful. Anthem was gut wrenching and gorgeous. And I’m very jealous of him for getting to kiss Jessica Vosk the way he did during the show.

And Jessica Vosk…Jessica Vosk. I knew little about her before the cast was announced, and then I had to go searching for her to vet my Florence. Because Florence is so precious to me, so important.

I knew Florence was in good hands with Jessica when I heard her recorded Nobody’s Side on her album Wild and Free. I was not disappointed this weekend. Jessica Vosk as Florence was EVERYTHING I wanted her to be, especially for my first time seeing Chess live.

Jessica’s Florence was jaded and professional and intrigued by Anatoly and touch-starved and bitter and angry and Nobody’s Side had just enough longing and punch in it.

They shortened the song - cut out the last verse after “never waste a hot afternoon” which meant they cut the long “don’t forget the best will go wrong” rift which is my favorite. But there’s a break earlier which gave JV an impressive vocal rift there - similar to what’s on her recorded Nobody’s Side.

I will always be partial to the Swedish staging of Nobody’s Side - because who doesn’t want angry/hurt Florence drinking and grinding with strangers in a nightclub - but it doesn’t fit in this production. And there’s something special about Helen Sjöholm being the only one to perform that staging - because HS is a dream and I am very gay.

The chemistry between Vosk and Riddle made me all smiling and tingly, and they had two almost-kisses and then a very long intense kiss and the romantic sap in me was very happy.

I also absolutely LOVED having a young Florence and her father in some flashbacks - in Budapest is Rising, in Florence Quits (I believe they were there - it’s getting a bit muddled in my mind). But multiple times where we see a young Florence run across the stage, or being carried by her father, or their separation. Oh it was so good.

The ending and You and I always gets me emotional. Again - Jessica Vosk portrays Florence with all the heartbreak and emotion I need. The repeated “losing my man and getting nothing in return” made me cry, and then I was sobbing during the Epilogue.

THIS is the version of Chess that should be revived on Broadway. It’s perfect as a rock opera. Keep it that way. Add in a little bit of dialogue if absolutely needed. We don’t need the self-defacing humor of the newest Danny Strong book. We don’t need the CIA, or fake Gregor, or sympathetic Molokov. This staging is perfect. This is what I want to see on Broadway.

I wish I could have seen the show 100 times. I’m extremely fortunate and grateful that I saw it twice. And that I got my program signed by Jessica Vosk - so now I’ve got signatures from three different actresses playing Florence.

There’s TikTok videos of pieces of the show floating around. I’d love to get my hands on a proper boot of the show. My phone battery is shit so it wasn’t gonna be me.

It was gorgeous and amazing and thrilling and everything I wanted and I hope to see more of it soon. With a good cast like this, worthy of taking on these roles.

#chess musical #chess the musical #the Muny #chess at the Muny #Jessica Vosk #benny andersson #björn ulvaeus #musicals #personal

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bthump · 3 months

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Realistically do you think Guts would have been abusive towards Isidro? I know Guts has the rpg group around to make him chill out when he gets too aggressive but I still think the trauma from his own upbringing would worm it's way into his relationship with Isidro much more than what's depicted. I know it sounds awful but I would have liked to see a scene where Guts slaps the shit of him and everyone is like 'WTF THAT'S A KID' and Guts is just like 'You think he has it tough compared to me?"

Honestly no, but I'm not really in the business of discussing fiction realistically, because I don't really think there's much point to talking about characters as if they're real people. Realistically someone like Guts could be abusive, or he might not be. Who knows? Too many factors go into people's behaviour irl for me to assume anything about a real person.

And as for Guts as he's presented in the manga, enh I think the story rushed his character development a bit, but no I don't think it feels wrong that he isn't abusive to Isidro, especially not in the way you describe where he like, hurts Isidro and defensively doubles down. I do think that you could make a case either way in terms of what would fit his character and the themes of the story though.

Like on the one hand his callous behaviour towards Theresia and the way he projected his own self-loathing on her certainly suggests that he could be abusive to kids potentially. I don't think he has enough of a relationship with Theresia to really call his behaviour abusive rather than dickish lol, but he was certainly a dick to her. His advice to Jill to stick with her abusive family wasn't great either.

I can imagine him projecting onto a kid he has a relationship with, like Isidro, and treating him poorly without thinking because of that. Viewing his own child self as weak and trying to stamp it out in the kids he's in charge of, eg. Hurting Isidro would also be thematically relevant, because one of Guts' personal moral boundaries is hurting kids, it's one of the things that makes him hate himself most. His self loathing when he killed Adonis, his hesitation when fighting Rosine, the self-loathing the ghosts express to him after killing a bunch of Rosine's monster children, etc.

In this context I could see Guts pushing Isidro too far during training the way Gambino used to with him, maybe, then realizing what he's doing when Isidro gets hurt and falling into a fit of self-loathing. I think that could've been a very emotionally and thematically relevant scene.

Buuut I also think it makes sense that Guts has grown past that behaviour, and honestly I definitely don't think it would be in character for Guts to hit him out of like, irritation or something like that. As much as Guts lashes out physically as part of how he deals with feelings, he focuses that on enemies, people he has an excuse to fight. Like eg he hurt Casca because he specifically wanted her out of his way and a big part of him wanted to kill her and go fight Griffith instead, not because he needed a punching bag for his emotions. That's what apostles are for.

If Guts was going to be abusive to Isidro I think it would be in a subtler, more emotionally abusive way, eg pushing him too hard, maybe calling him weak, berating him for a mistake during a fight, etc. (I mean technically you can argue he is abusive in canon just by letting this kid risk his life fighting trolls and whatever lmao, but allowances have to be made for genre conventions.) But yeah I think it also does make sense that he doesn't act like that, because he is self-aware that it is bad behaviour and he is consciously trying to be better during the Millenium Falcon arc.

He has hurt kids that way before, again Theresia as an example, but he felt bad about it. And Guts doesn't often lash out at friends and allies when he's in a healthier place emotionally. He does a lot during the Black Swordsman arc, or when he's bitter and resentful with Casca in the Golden Age, but with most of the Hawks, or with the RPG group, he tends to think before he speaks imo.

So basically tl;dr I could imagine another version of the story where Guts was more emotionally abusive to Isidro and I think that could work, but I don't think he necessarily ought to be based on his characterization, and I don't think it would manifest in random physical lashing out.

Thanks for the ask, this is something I've never really thought about before and it's interesting to consider.

#ask #anonymous #a #b #character: guts #theme: abuse #arc: mf #headcanons #character details #theme: rpg group

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whumpspicelatte · 6 months

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Skin, wound, and fear for the not-so-nice ask game :>

Okay, the only OCs unleashed upon the internet on this blog in any true capacity are my whumper Cole Glass, my whumpee Abelard Montagnard, and Cole’s somewhat morally skewed caretaker Daniel Henrikson. I dunno which one you wanted me to answer this about, so all three it is!

Note: By the way, this got very long and holds what probably counts as spoilers, so I’m putting it under a ‘keep reading’ to keep things contained.

fear: What is your OC's greatest fear? What do they do when confronted with it? Are they open with their fear, or do they hide it away?

For Cole, his greatest fear has to be full-out honest-to-god helplessness. Cole’s got pretty major trauma, which I’ve acknowledged at even the first time I’ve written about him, and I’ll talk about it more in later installments, but to put it plainly, he got abducted by a vampire as a preteen to act as said vampire’s personal thrall and servant. Vampiric persuasion doesn’t work on Cole for a very mundane but easily overlooked reason (I’m already littering the text with tiny clues here and there), but a terrified, traumatized kid is very easy to keep in line. Being fed on so often during a crucial part of his development had its…effects on him, physical, mental and emotional. Daniel’s the only reason why he managed to get out before his captor…well, Cole is decently attractive. He made a cute kid, and had a pretty face as a teenager. That should be enough context. He still refuses to let anyone other than Daniel touch his bare skin.

No, he doesn’t talk about it. Yes, Daniel is fully aware of all this, but Daniel knows more about Cole than literally any other person on the planet. But Cole doesn’t like to think of it- he just makes sure that he will never be so helpless again.

Abelard’s greatest fear is actually drowning. Yep, he’s the one with the panic-spiking irrational phobia, nothing overly deep, just a deeply visceral terror which he has never been able to relinquish. Almost like a forgotten childhood trauma come back to bite him in the ass… He’s a vampire, so it’s not going to kill him, but damn would something that simulates the experience of drowning mess with his head. You know, like being waterboarded. He doesn’t like to acknowledge it at all, finds it mortifying. So far, Cole doesn’t know about this, but there’s plenty of time to find out…

Daniel can’t deal with failure- and by failure, I don’t mean just failing something once, I mean he will throw himself against a metaphorical brick wall again and again in order to make something work. If, despite his best efforts, he cannot succeed, his self-esteem will take a major, major blow. Blame it on his adoptive father; he tried his best, but being a vampire hunter means that you either start off screwed up before taking up the mantle or end up screwed up just to survive, so he was…tough. So far in his life, hard work has carried Daniel through pretty much everything he’s faced thus far- there’s a reason why he’s one of the top hunters in the country, and has managed to reach his forties despite being in the business since he was literally a child- but hard work doesn’t always work out. Not everything can be succeeded at. And oh, does it punch him right in the gut when success is no longer possible. It’ll probably be what gets him killed one day.

skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?

I’d say that, at the start of the story, all three of my ocs are pretty comfortable in their own skins!

Daniel is the most self-aware, actually, but this doesn’t make him an actually good person- I might write a series about what he gets up to at some point- and he’s also the most at peace with himself, horrors and all. He sees himself as a person- not bad, not good, mostly outside of moral contexts. He’s aware of just how much of a monster he can be, and just how much of a saint he can be at the very same time. Very comfortable with his inner nature.

Close after him is Cole, after having received a lot of therapy, catharsis and a caretaker who refuses to quit at pretty much anything. He’s also quite self-aware, and has gotten mostly at peace with himself. But he still feels like that terrified, helpless, useless child he used to be still lurks within his marrow, and he will do anything to keep from becoming so weak again.

Then there’s Abelard. Outwardly, he’s very confident and sure of himself, proud of being an apex predator whose very voice none can resist (except for one person before Cole shows up). He’s powerful, very much so, and he damn well knows it. Very comfortable with his body too (though all three of them are). The problem, of course, is that Abelard was not always a vampire, and wasn’t always a vampire with nobody to fear either. He still does not deal well when forced to confront the fact that no, relying on his vampiric persuasion (which is strong enough to even work on other vampires) was not the smartest of moves to make, and he damn well knew it. Ultimately, it’s that vulnerability which he hides behind his entitled arrogance. As well as the person he used to be, over a century ago, before he got so used to the bloodshed, gore and indifferent decadence littering vampiric high society. He’s not that person anymore, that person is very much dead, but he refuses to think back to when he was that person. It hurts too much.

The feeling of being a rabid beast who needs to be contained comes later into the story, thanks to Cole’s, ahem, influence.

wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What's the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?

Physically, all three of these guys deal well with being physically wounded- mostly, anyway. Daniel and Cole are both vampire hunters and have gotten hurt quite a bit in their line of work, and they’re good with remaining clinical and unbothered by all their wounds while ‘on-the-hunt’, just patch up and go. It’s a survival skill, nothing more, nothing less. Abelard, on the other hand, actually deals with injuries fairly well- when it’s not silver. Silver will typically just make him very, very mad- so long as no survival instincts rear their head.

Now, worst wounds. Hmmm…

Daniel once literally got (lightly) vivisected by a vampire he was hunting! That was fun! Especially for Cole, who was the one who had to drag his mentor’s sorry ass to safety and to emergency medical services for what Cole couldn’t patch up himself. He’s still got the scars. Annoyingly chipper about the whole incident, which is a one-way track to inflaming Cole’s temper.

Cole…well, see vampire-abduction-enslavement above. I’d say that counts as the worst scarring he has ever received on a mental and emotional level. Yes, he's also got physical scarring from the experience too. Moving on.

Abelard…well, I’d say this experience, the story focused on Abelard’s torture and conditioning, will be the worst thing to ever happen to him, when taking into account the fact that he is going to get whumped quite a bit and get mindscrewed over for the sake of Cole’s ‘domestication theory’, but before now? Uh…his sire was a very messed-up person! Let’s just leave it at that for now!

Thanks for sending this my way! It was pretty fun to round my characters out like this a bit more!

#ask meme #my ocs #whump #Nobody Left To Listen #NLTL series #ask #answered ask

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thestobingirlie · 6 months

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Read St Steven part 4!

Cards on the table; I usually have a bit of a hard time with Nancy - or at least, how the show writes her. I don’t really care for Stancy either.

Nancy immediately ejecting tape, wanting to destroy it AND watch it on repeat forever was like a knife to the heart.

BARB! It’s *so* interesting (and such a twist of the knife) that Steve and Barb are so intrinsically linked in Nancy’s history and emotional landscape. The way she’s looking back, almost like she lost Steve the same time she lost Barb.

And Jonathan…I honestly wasn’t expecting him to come up in Nancy’s sections - and yet his absence still felt like a gut punch.

(I don’t know if this is something you’re gonna write, but I am curious how Jonathan is dealing with this - if he sees it as anything to be dealt with, except for how it effects Nancy. Is he worried that she’s retracing the same steps she took with Steve in season 2?)

I love all of it, I just needed to sing particular praises to your Nancy/the Stancy stuff.

And to let you know that I am once again picking Mike up and rattling him like a Christmas present. What is going on in your head, Michael? I need to know!

Anyway, hope this ask finds you well, despite the BS RE; Eddie’s book. X

thank you so much!!!! i’m so glad you enjoyed the fic, and my interpretation of nancy!

barb and steve as these two totally different people that haunt nancy in very similar ways is sooo interesting, but especially in the context of, like, nancy only had the both of them together for a very brief time, and though steve lived longer than barb, stancy’s relationship was so bogged down with trauma that it almost becomes unrecognisable to what it was at the beginning of s1. in other terms, (like you said) she lost steve when she lost barb, it just took him another year to die.

jonathan (and jancy) is really interesting to me in an au where steve dies, because you just know he haunts that relationship. i am gonna focus on the repercussions of steve’s death on the relationship (though probably not from jonathan’s pov. at least not for a long while), so i won’t spoil anything too big, but steve is essentially the barb of that relationship. except steve wasn’t her best friend, he was her boyfriend. and jonathan now has this unchangeable, can’t ever do wrong figure to be compared to… and that’s never gonna be a healthy relationship lmao.

mike just wants to help nancy 🥺❤️ he doesn’t know how but he’s trying baby.

#saint stephen #nancy wheeler #stranger things #asks #anon

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sweetmage · 10 months

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VIOLENCE ASK: Number 12 🥺

Thank you for your ask! :D

12. The unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Probably predictable coming from me but these guys for sure! (I was inspired by your choice of emoji lol)

Sebastian

I certainly get why a lot of people might hate Sebastian and feel uncomfortable about his stances and behaviors and I'm certainly not here to say that isn't valid. However, a lot of other "critiques" of him come from people who either have never taken him with them or who have misunderstood his character. His internal struggle with himself goes much further than just Prince vs. Brother and I think he is a very compelling character, albeit unfortunately underrealized. Perhaps this is cheating but I would like to attach some other people’s meta that dives into his character’s nuances and motivations much better than I could! On how Sebastian’s performative adherence to chantry propaganda conflicts with genuine values and actions. On how Sebastian victim-blames himself and has used some parts of his faith as a bandage for his unaddressed trauma. Oh Sebastian’s admiration of the wardens, his love of violence, and his desires for cut and try good vs evil conflicts (it is hard to sum this one up, I recommend just reading it for whoever is interested)

As for more of my own thoughts, I genuinely find him to fascinating. He is a walking contradiction in every regard and he is as impulse as he is uncertain about everything (those two traits playing off of each other frequently). He is a victim of abuse, neglect, and abandonment who latches on strongly to people and ideals that give him purpose and make him feel useful and like he belongs, he performs to fit those roles even if they go against his nature. He is genuinely kind and thoughtful though kind and thoughtful don't always go hand and hand with the Chantry's definition of good and virtuous. I think he is genuinely funny, he has about as much snark and sass as the rest of the crew if you actually take the time to listen to him. He treats Merrill with kindness and respect and is open to civil discussions about her faith and way of life which is more than can be said about some of my other faves. More of a headcanon but think there is a very delicious and angsty tragedy to the Last Straw if you play a mage and support Anders (which I always do, of course). I wrote a little about that here and drew a comic about it here if you are so inclined to read it! None of this is to say that I agree with or condone his actions, I certainly do not. I will always be pro-mage and, performative or not, many of his actions and statements against mages as a whole and characters who are mages are entirely inexcusable. I also want to clarify that I do not think his faith is ENTIRELY performative or fake, I think he genuinely believes and receives comfort from his faith, but is the actions he takes because of it (conscious or subconscious) that do not align with the ways he conducts himself otherwise and I think he has a lot to sort or morality wise and a lot of impulses to deal with. But it's okay, I can fix him :)

Tamlen

Embarrassingly I do not have nearly as much to say about Tamlen lol. He is just my favorite of the origin companions and his story really really punched me straight in the gut and then much later punched me straight in the gut again. I think he is very sweet and goofy was written realistically in a way that he felt like a real friend I might have had when I was younger. I know a lot of people like him and think of him fondly, but I would love to see more fanart of him and stuff. I would love to shoutout this beautifully drawn and absolutely heartbreaking comic about him that I keep coming back to. Also I will be obnoxious and self-promote my bittersweet AU and series of artworks I have in which he survives and recovers... but at a price!

#sebastian vael #dragon age 2 #tamlen #dragon age origins #da2spoilers #daospoilers #long post #jun art #jun rambles #jun answers

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bonesandthebees · 5 months

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And the. Tommy’s back. And he knows he died and I’m skipping over Wilbur’s trademark self blame and expectation that Tommy will be angry at him (and him turning himself into a martyr already) in favour of [“Then why wasn’t she there?”] BEE! HASN’T THIS POOR BOY BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH?!?

Didn’t he have enough trauma and near death experiences and now he has actually death trauma (I wonder what tattoo he would get for that, I wonder who would draw it cuz it’s definitely not going to be Niki, I wonder if he’d put it right next to Wilbur’s, I wonder if he’s even going to get a tattoo at all)

[“Did I do something wrong?” Tommy sobbed into his shoulder. “Did Kristin decide I wasn’t hers anymore?”] BEE STOP PUNCHING ME IN THE GUT!!!

Anyway, theory time. There’s a few options as to why Kristin is not there, personally I chose to believe option 1 because I feel like we’ve had enough angst already (also congratulations one getting me to pick option one because I am very much agnostic).

1. Kristin exists, but she wasn’t there because it wasn’t Tommy’s time yet, aka Wilbur was meant to save him.

2. Kristin exists, but she wasn’t there because Tommy isn’t a proper believer anymore since he doesn’t trust her judgement / doesn’t want to die, so she either can’t or doesn’t want to get him.

3. Kristin exists, but but Tommy broke Deathling rules by trying to kill Jack, so she either can’t or doesn’t want to get him.

4. Kristin does not exist and therefor isn’t there. Nothing Tommy could have done would have change that.

Either way, Tommy’s beliefs as a Deathling have been permanently shattered now. And he hates Clara, so Welcome to the Quackity lifestyle!!!

(4/8)

-🌲

I've been setting up this whole thing of tommy not seeing kristin when he died for a bit now lol. poor kid he's really had the worst night ever. but he was already questioning his faith to kristin, of course a catalyst had to come along and break those ideals for good :)

considering the tattoos are a part of worshipping kristin, I don't know if tommy would get a tattoo of this or not. he might still for tradition's sake, but that's actually something interesting to think about

I'm not going to tell you which answer is right because truthfully I haven't decided. I like keeping all options open so they're left up to reader interpretation. I think any of those makes sense, but there's no real definitive answer in my head and that's the point of it all. you don't get answers when dealing with the gods. you can only guess why something happened the way it did, but you'll never know for sure.

#ask #spruce anon #glass ch 27

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ssaalexblake · 2 years

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The thing about the twissy arc for me is that i actually really love it as a Tragedy? It is trying to be a tragedy and it is completely successful at what it is attempting. The characters Want to reconcile, be friends (i would make some comment about Love here but the ghost of missy would hunt me down), but it Doesn’t Work. Because of things both of them do, ideals both of them hold, because of things done in the past, they are prevented from getting what they want and it is sad and it’s tragic and then them both dying alone in the dirt hurts in a punch in the gut kind of way because they were so close to going out, hand in unlovable hand, side by side, but instead die alone. It’s sad! It was trying to be heart-breaking and sad and it worked.

And I mean, if you don’t like tragedy stories, fine, whatever floats your boat, but it IS a tragedy either way.

So the idea that 13 and Dhawan are an insult to that arc and that the story following is disrespectful to them because spydoc are the realistic nasty fallout to said tragedy IRKS me so much. Twissy was a tragedy, making it Untragic by ignoring the end of the story is what would be disrespectful to what i personally consider to be a hauntingly tragic story of trying and wanting and ultimately failing anyway.

The ultimate disrespect would be ruining the tragedy. This isn’t a ‘actually they lived happily ever after after a few road bumps’ story, it’s a ‘there was love here and it Mattered but ultimately didn’t change a thing’ story.

Dhawan!master alludes to the events of twissy as a way to dig at 13 a fair number of times in what has been very few appearances. He has weaponised his own pain, correctly deducing that it Also hurts the Doctor as much. He’s not wrong. Of all the outside things going on in S12 with the lore, it’s a pretty consistent thread between their interactions that he will allude to being Bad and Irredeemable to hurt her for ever trying (because he knows she cares), and she’ll goad him and rage back in response and try and hurt him like he hurt her and she scores her own hits by knowing him too well as well. It’s nasty and brutal and it works because they are so deeply hurt by what happened with Twissy as a base line for everything else.

It’s just that twissy is written All over spydoc, without Twissy their Intense and Visceral rage does not make sense, even. They are both hurting even Before you consider the plot events of s12. They are both still hurting actively because they are poorly coping with how their previous story ended. Mostly, if they’d written it to be anything Other than an absolute clusterfuck it would be a case of ‘why are you ignoring what happened last time they saw each other???’.

The doctor thinks the master abandoned them to die alone and that their decades worth of help was just some scheme to use to stay alive, probably, they Definitely did not know Missy intended to shank Simm and go back to 12 no matter how comforting a concept that is. The master is severely traumatised by being both the victim and perpetrator of a murder/suicide simultaneously. The fact that that event was entirely the result of the doctor’s influence over them and that in s12 they find out the doctor Also influences them on a genetic level, too adds to the mess of trauma.

Twissy’s a tragedy, it was trying to be one and succeeded. It was tragic alone as a secular event, but if you track what the events of their arc do to their next regenerations it makes it More tragic, which is what it Should do. It should not defang the story from before, it should bolster it. Spydoc being violent and angry and horrifying makes that twissy came So So close all the more tragic.

The insult would be to make the tragedy Less tragic.

#dw shit #dmsh #i know i know i am all spydoc but i actually do LOVE the tragedy of missy and 12 #who both failed in the end because of very real character flaws inherent to both of them #but damn i would have been Pissed had they pissed on the arc and made it less sad and for what???#nothing.#in the end #all the headcanons to make that ending Less sad are not canon #the doctor being angry is a fair response to what They think happend #they do not have the full story #but the master's flaws leading him to Not Tell Her are his fault and a result of His character flaws #as i said... Tragic. Which is the point. which is why it's fine.#it is 2am and i care a normal amount about how imformative to spydoc that twissy is

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phosphorescent-naidheachd · 2 years

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@goblins-riddles-or-frocks replied to your post:Sunday Snippet

I love this!! I think my favorite take on these two is just throwing them together post r&r and seeing how they claw their way out of their respective traumas. and idk second choice romance is so poignant to me.

I love what a gut punch it is for her to say “I thought I was” there. where do you even go from that! especially after already getting married, and the nature of royalty being what it is I get not knowing how to resolve it tho, I’m stalling on pretty much the same issue myself alas

Ahhh, thank you!! I love the dynamic between these two, and doubly so during and post R&R. They have #CompatibleTraumas, and I think it’s a lot of fun to explore the ways the characters’ traumas and emotional needs interact—both for better and for worse.

And yes to your statement about second choice/second chance romances!

IMO, even more than her feelings for Mal or the Darkling, the main obstacle to canon Nikolai/Alina is that canon!Alina is unsuited for life as a political figure. From a Doylist perspective, this unsuitability boils down to Bardugo’s desire to have Alina end her story by returning to Keramzin with Mal at her side—an ending that wouldn’t work anymore if Alina was allowed to fully grow into her leadership role.

I think you’re the person I’ve discussed this with before, but while I understand what Bardugo was trying to narratively achieve, and I don’t wholly disagree with it, it still frustrates me to see Alina start to reach her potential, only to repeatedly have it cut off and watch her start from scratch over and over again. I’ll freely admit that this is a matter of personal preference as much as it is objective critique!

I’m sure a thousand metas have been written about how Alina’s different love interests symbolize different parts of herself and different paths she could have taken, but it always hits me anew each time I think about her canonical relationships.

ANYWAY.

I feel like Nikolai could respond to Alina’s accusations by retreating behind his ‘perfect prince’ veneer, or he could be emotionally open with her, as he has been in the past. Likewise, I can see Alina either retreating from him or having a real conversation with him. Despite the rocky start to their acquaintance, the two of them have been pretty low-drama together when it comes to the personal stuff!

Yeah, the nature of royalty means divorce or even an official separation aren’t really options—especially not without the existence of an heir and a spare!—which would only make Alina feel more trapped. That said, I can see Alina going on a PR tour/diplomatic trip/secret mission by herself (albeit accompanied by guards/friends) as a solution of sorts, as that would temporarily give her space from Nikolai, the palace, and her ordinary duties. Likewise, I think it would help Alina if she did more work with the common people, as that’s something that feeds her soul in the same way working with the nobility drains her.

The role of queen can’t be completely changed without creating problems for the Lantsov reign, especially since Nikolai came to the throne under the circumstances he did, but I think Alina and he could get away with tweaking it some. Alina’s sainthood would aid them in this, as it lets conservatives write her off as the exception rather than the rule, while also gradually accustoming everyone to a different type of queenship.

That said, I think my resolution might simply be adding Zoya into the mix (and potentially moving the entire scene into my WIP Nikolai/Zoya/Alina fic).

Zoya tosses her dark, glossy curls back. “Self-pity isn’t a good look on you, Starkov.”

“Self-pity?”

“None of us forced you to stay; no one forced you to marry Nikolai. This was your choice. And now you want to quit because, what, it’s too hard?” She sniffs derisively. “If you’re going to run away, do it now before you’ve established yourself any further. I’m sure someone will step up to fill your place.”

Alina sputters, furious. “I—I’m not running away.”

Even if I wanted to, I have nowhere left to go.

“If you say so.” Her tone is infuriatingly, airily dismissive. “But then, that’s your modus operandi, isn’t it? Running away when things get too real?”

“I’m not a coward,” Alina spits back.

Zoya smiles, all teeth and disdain. “Then prove it.”

#phos replies #goblins-riddles-or-frocks #i'll tell you how the sun rose #things done by phos #nikolina #zoynikolina #nikozoyalina

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ilargeicontradictmiself · 2 years

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So i dont know how to explain this so ill just tell you what i thought while i was watching the ep and we'll see whether i get inspired from there but ill probably edit this post as things develop into words in brain. (Ryeon ep15 related)(ramble) (Joong-gil ep15 too at the end) (this is long)

If you actually read this , get up, go to the bathroom maybe , drink some water take a walk or just open a window and stare out into the world for a bit. Do something completely unrelated to this. For me <3

everything ryeon has been holding in and now the clock is ticking (idk why but that's what she said) and things dont just not go well but she cares so much because of this about this case and Joong-gil shows up at the last minute and betrays her so much its insane. But she doesn't want to fully lash out at him because even though he's a different person (oh btw miss "he's a different person" couldn't look at Ryu without catching her breath, so maybe we're just avoiding things me thinks) she still hurt him with this (i think she recognizes that her actions kind of echoed to these opinions of his) and she says to this guy she's beating up "you're looking for someone else to blame " and i think her spree is caused both by the fact that she's at her limit and this stupid world hasn't changed and these fucking people are heartless and here we are again but she's also looking to lash out at someone other than Joong-gil for what he did. And "you have crossed the line" , "when have i not crossed the line", "this is different " it is, its too much.

Gut punch of a scene when he tells her "(..*pain*...) How could a person like that deceive me and work under me" and are you really doing this right now and you can see all of that and more in her face and she still points out "i never deceived you" I LOVE THAT SHE DOESN'T BUCKLED WHEN SHE LOOKS AT HIM there are scenes when you can see her taking a step back either out of rank respect or because its him or both but she never backs down when she cares she never lets whatever feelings she has for him get in the way of what she wants to say just like she never did. This is part of their relationship and always has been. They talk.

It feels like this has been building up in her from the start (!!!<3!!!)

And because this kickballed to their relationship and him. I am fascinated by the mount of betrayal he feels. Like from the beginning everything suicide related she (the RM team) has done has felt like a person offence to him.

Emperor calling his existence pathetic was a highlight dont ask me to explain why but it makes sense

I am mad at him for everything gut punch arrangement scene related

I talked about this somewhere else but i can not bare the thought of finding someone, you love each other so much, you grow together,and grow up together,you make promises, find purposes and have hopes for the future make your lives together. Something absolutely horrible happens but you find each other, you fight and find each other, you go home and you try every day to heal from what happened and the people you swore to protect are the ones to tear everything down and you loose yourself, both of you do, and then you loose each other.

That scene the emperor says "usually it only takes one lifetime" and then the hospital 👌👌👌👌

The trauma of that, i do not have the ability to describe any of this.

Such pain, and loneliness,and betrayal and regret and love and all of it just all of it.

Must have been so frustrating having all these pieces of a life he doesn't recognize and he finally had enough (loved to see it)

Spoilers from promo:

I dont want to say anything related to whether he asked her to make him forget or not want to see the rest first, i think he'll remember and feel horrible and take the blame but maybe even before that he won't want ryeon to go to hell(thus the "jumadeung will handle things internally") he's mad (wrong word) at her but he still knows her even if he doesn't remember plus he still wants to remember.

#tw: suicide #mbc tomorrow

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