#he craves connections so badly; and hell say what he needs to make the ppl he likes stay w him

[samarecharm]

Akira can be invited literally anywhere and enjoy himself bc he just likes hanging w his friends all the time; hes the perfect parallel play buddy :) makes me think he was a bit of a social butterfly even before the Shido incident; he gets more energy being around his friends than being cooped up alone in that attic

#chattin #akira #im sure he had like. a couple of decent friends #and tons of people who knew him and vibed w him #back home #but popularity means that connections are usually shallow #and getting put on probation would definitely make them cut ties #or have their parents cut ties w him #now that hes in a new school and new place; hes gotta start off from scratch #but it comes p naturally to him; he LIKES people and he knows what to say (for the most part) #on the topic; i do think this would be a good explanation for why hed be good at interrogating shadows #he reads the room and knows what to say to get the outcome he wants #hes just very keen on ppl and their wants and needs; even if its vague info at first #he craves connections so badly; and hell say what he needs to make the ppl he likes stay w him #its like. a little manipulative. he cant really help that; theres still trust to be earned #but he drops it fairly quickly when he realizes he doesnt need to Work to keep these ppl around him #being around popular crowds means u gotta watch out for lies and deceit; ppl using u to boost themselves #but w the thieves and assorted confidants; theres no fear of that. he gets to just be akira #the guy who likes being invited to group hangouts so he can sit and silently stare at them for 4 hours straight #and have no expectations to talk and mingle #and he does talk and mingle. but he likes to just have them next to him. so hes content either way

[oleaspur]

ummmwine replied to your post “zenkaiankoku replied to your post “i find it really interesting how...”

oh totally to all of that though, like, yeah i think ppl either smooth him over WAY too much &/or make him like, more stable than evan which is like??? they have Different Problems actually but connor is definitely the least okay / least okay to be around of all of them...but it's also like...clearly just as Off to interpret him as somebody who just acts out completely at random and is just Intensely Angry ALL THE TIIIME instead of yeah, him having this actual internal

OK im replying under the cut because this will be long but tl;dr YOURE RIGHT

process behind the stuff he does which like, from an outside perspective would clearly be unjustified or over the top or irrational etc etc etc...and tbh like interpreting him as like, slow to warm up to ppl and quick to draw back thx to paranoia or potentially actually sort of latching on to ppl too fast but it can also go sour rl quick All Thanks To Splitting is valid af and like!! we don't know cuz canon doesn't say anything about that kind of thing re him. liiiike

i think the difference between having a relationship w someone with something like depression and anxiety and with someone who has a disorder like bpd is that w/ depression and anxiety you can almost always take a step back. its not going to be the case that everything you do impacts them and that their response to your actions is going to be a public thing.. bpd for me at least is very loud. it takes up all the space it can possibly find, so every interaction Means something and every response you have to those interactions needs to serve some kind of a function and it needs to be Known. its why at least for me i tend to suffer more when i have close relationships with people, because youre constantly having that sort of connection. like im not saying its always a bad thing because the good times are! so good! but everything is horrible and intense All the time so it never feels like youre doing something wrong when youre acting out. its more like why DOESNT this matter to everyone else the way it should. 

the splitting thing just makes so much sense to me because i used to be the kind of person who would say like , really awful things to my family as a result of it. i dont ever want people to think im justifying what connor supposedly did but i think there Should be an explanation beyond hes just ‘a bad person’ or Vaguely troubled. there is a genuine attempt to reach out to evan, however minor, and i think that its way more compelling to treat him as someone who Does crave genuine connection w people and is just unable to approach it in a healthy way than anything else

i don't think that reference to that particular incident with zoe is meant to be like "there's a specific canon answer to what issue made connor act like this" but like i can so see that being more of legit paranoia fueling that problem somehow and just...like hghh again out of all the senior kids he'd definitely have the most work to do before he'd be able to have a good relationship either in terms of on his own end or re the other person's end of it...like obviously

there's the violence which is like. number one Got To Get Rid Of That Asap mostly for other ppl's sakes but then like. figuring out how to deal w the underlying crap would be more for his sake. like god that all of them were in therapy but also connor's problems definitely seem intense enough that he could probably stand to look into being medicated instead of having to self medicate cuz i figure that's what he's trying to do even if its kind of backfiring sometimes...

definitely definitely.. i could say a lot about why i think having connor and evan (or jared i suppose but i havent thought about that so much) bonding initially and then it going downhill because of a lack of an actual understanding of each other’s issues (and then both learning and coping separately IN ORDER to build an actual relationship with each other) is more interesting and genuine feeling than them Immediately helping each other and it actually working. but it would be long.. 

they all need to See Someone. + obviously medication is never the be-all end-all of any kind of mh treatment but for me personally therapy was never useful UNTIL i was on medication that actually helped regulate my moods first. the sort of things they talked about were never feasible for me because my moods dropped SO fast and because just being told to do things was so infuriating.. and so on. i definitely agree w the self-medication part i usually see that as connor trying to deal as best he can w something that no one else seems to understand or struggle with. sometimes it seems like the best way of coping w things is to try and detach urself from it . obviously that isnt healthy at all but when u dont know how else to deal w ur problems u find your own solutions :(

ANYWAYS the point is that like. first of all projecting shit Is Valid And Who Cares Anyways but in this case its probably also more accurate than what ppl write when they have no experience with such intense and unmanageable things and stuff that you really can't quite imagine accurately unless you know it firsthand already. and godddddd a trope i cannot stand is like, the 'i just need one good relationship and that will fix things / inspire me to choose to be able to

handle this and voila! i am handling it" like!!! i LOVE good relationships being mutually helpful and with this cast it's easy to see how they'd clash cuz they all do in canon!! but it's also ughh so easy to see how they could all understand and help each other even tho their specific problems are different when u zoom in enough. and like it's cool as hell if a relationship helps you / motivates you but it's not gonna fix everything and it shouldn't!! and like yeah with

connor i really see his shit as being involved in / close to the clinical psychotic types of issues. which yknow, people REALLY don't tend to know how to write if they don't have lived experience or really do a lot of good research anyways. like badly written anxiety is still probably gonna be closer to the mark than badly written delusions or smthing, idk. but anyways i am going ON AND ON and the point is. bpd connor is valid as fuck and i love that perspective on him

YEAH i think when i was younger i fell into that kind of writing as a sad sort of wish-fulfilment thing because it makes sense to want things to be that way. but its not helpful to people who relate to those characters, or realistic/healthy to want that sort of solution because it just doesnt exist

i think with personality disorders especially its hard because to a certain extent its like... it inhabits you. i was SO worried that once i started being able to deal w my mental health issues i would stop being a real person because like. it informed Everything in terms of how i approached the world. its hard to write something like that but like.. it all makes sense in your head. you have your own internal justification for everything even if you never reason it out and even if you couldnt possibly explain it in words you KNOW youre feeling this way for a reason and youre justified and should be feeling this way. its weird stuff

ANYWAY ty for this i LOVE talking about this kind of thing and literally everything youve said is so good and real.. connor is important to me even if he has barely any characterisation in canon lol

#ummmwine #jury.txt #response #long post #SORRY this got so long also. no need to reply BTW i just love the excuse to talk about this stuff