#trauma can give you literal brain damage

[wilteddreamsofbaldursgate]

I’m a fierce believer and defender of Smooth Brain Astarion (affectionate).

I love that, if left to his own devices, he ends up dead in a ditch. I love that this pasty menace of an elf is a walking disaster. I love that his brain produces one coherent thought per day, only to have it backfire on him later on. I love that his first choice in freedom is to unapologetically be the worst version of himself. Because it makes sense. 

That’s what abuse and trauma do to your brain—they fuck with it. 

And in Astarion’s defence, the man didn’t have to use his brain for nearly 200 years—it’s probably the very thing that kept him as alive as he can be; to survive 200 years of pure shit. 

And what use is his brain when his days and nights are dictated by someone else for as long as he can remember? When he has no say in what clothes he wears. When he doesn’t get to choose what or when to eat. When his body and mind aren’t his own, distorted by torture and hunger and self-loathing, forced to obey his vampiric master. Why use his brain when his survival depends exclusively on his abuser’s whims? 

Astarion could’ve come up with the most brilliant plan possible to escape Cazador or save a mark from their doom, but he never stood a chance of succeeding—which doesn’t mean that he didn’t get punished for trying (or even thinking about it) anyway.

Existing under Cazador was a game he couldn’t win, so why bother playing? 

And it’s only by chance that Astarion’s autonomy is returned to him literally overnight. It’s only natural that he’s overwhelmed by his newfound freedom. How is he expected to make sound decisions when he can’t even recall a time when he could do and say as he pleased? 

Of course Astarion is a walking disaster when he finds himself on that beach after the Nautiloid crash—and he’s fully aware of that! That’s why it’s so crucial for him to get on the player’s/other companion’s good side.

He’s self-aware enough to be so insecure about himself that he would rather trust a stranger’s capabilities than his own. 

Being a catastrophe of a person is part of Astarion’s character journey. Not only does he have to reclaim his personhood, he has to learn how to depend on his own brain again and I think that's such a painfully beautiful, important message Baldur’s Gate 3 sends. 

Because healing isn’t pretty. Nor is it easy.

You’re not alright the moment you’re free of whatever horrors you had to live through—and that’s ok! There’s time and room for you to adjust. 

And the moment Astarion feels more or less safe within his new environment, when he’s fed and treated like a person worthy of respect and consideration, his insights, skills and perception are crucial assets to the group.

Astarion knows his art and literature, and although his little remarks are unhinged at times, he's genuinely witty. Even his objections are, considering the circumstances, absolutely legitimate.

Personally, I love seeing Smooth Brain Astarion become more and more secure in his judgement the more Tav/other companions trust and support him.

Astarion is smart, his brain’s just been stewed for nearly 200 years.

#baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #baldur’s gate iii #astarion #astarion ancunin #bg3 astarion #astarion headcanons #smooth brain astarion I will defend you until you can do it yourself #trauma can give you literal brain damage #of course he's a little eccentric #tw: trauma #tw: abuse #smooth brain astarion

[50000bears]

My gp said that I almost without a doubt have cptsd but that it's not possible for me to get diagnosed or receive treatment because the healthcare system and I are both broke 🙃

#he was literally like yeah you're extremely traumatized but the best I can do is prescribe anti anxiety meds and give you free online #resources that you can work through by yourself because it will be thousands of dollars otherwise and there are no programs in place to hel #capitalism win! traumatized and barely functioning from a childhood full of life altering brain damaging terror? you'll need an amazing job #if you want any help #can't get a job because of your trauma? suck it up or die then ig #the world feels extremely unlivable #cptsd tw #mental illness tw #trauma mention

[stevie-petey]

we thought love was something (we weren't meant to find)

﹂ season two of "come home"

as you approach a year since will's disappearance, things seem to be back to how they were. you still have jonathan and the boys, hawkins is boring again, and you and steve harrington aren't really friends. you convince yourself that it's fine, but time can't heal all wounds, and you sure as hell have your fair share of them. when will starts having episodes and your brother hides a literal monster from you, junior year becomes a lot more painful than it already was. (and because you can never win, steve gets dragged into it). (more complicated feelings arise). (as usual).

episode one: MADMAX - what does steve fear more ? you or the plague ? currently it's you, some guy with an awful mullet stares you down in the parking lot (gross), nancy invites you to a party from your nightmares, and you become an official unlicensed therapist for will. yay for junior year !

episode two: trick or treat, freak - you and nancy have a bonding session in the library (kinda hot tbh), billy gives jonathan and steve a common cause to unite on: Protect Y/N, you're a chauffeur to a very sad steve harrington, and dustin uses will's trauma to his advantage.

episode three: the pollywog - you lecture jonathan about daddy issues and then have an intellectual debate about healthy relationships, you play Mr. Love Dr with Steve, nancy and jonathan go on a sick side quest (and actually inform you this time !), meanwhile: you're about to put a leash on your damn brother.

episode four: will the wise - jonathan is gone for one day and suddenly all hell breaks loose, your hesitant friendship with steve is already rocky (thanks billy) but steve is hot when he's angry tbh, you become a couple's counselor to lucas and max (sorry dustin), and you're now officially the world's worst cat owner ever. and babysitter. but what else is new ?

episode five: dig dug - you and dustin bury a body and con your mother into fleeing town, great sibling bonding time ! you play hockey with a monster, dustin gets ghosted by his friends, and now it's your turn to kidnap steve (technically dustin does, but you don't stop him) who later gives you some terrifying realizations.

episode six: the spy - dustin and steve haggle a butcher, you throw some meat at steve and then have a weird conversation about love, you stop dustin from becoming an incel, and then you wrestle some demodogs like any real woman would. side note: steve is hot protecting the kids.

episode seven: the mind flayer - jonathan is back and has a lot of questions and you have even more for him, the gang gets back together and ties will to a chair, you tell the kid a story to distract him from his demons, steve is a confused mess but at least youre with him, and someone makes a surprise appearance (her name rhymes with shell).

episode eight: the gate - you encourage nancy to take your place (everyone is shocked), you and steve are the newest babysitters in town, billy ruins things as always, tunnels are weird when youre concussed, you remind jonathan of an old promise, and when the snowball comes you make your own promise with steve that you know you can keep.

⌑ set between seasons 2 and 3

﹂ episode nine: the fall - surprise ! life still carries on even with minor brain damage from constant concussions :( on the bright side, you and the gang all become homies. meanwhile, steve grapples with the warm fuzzies and parental issues before his worst nightmare happens: you meet robin. the horrors !

⌑ status: FINISHED

⌑ season two title based on this song x

⌑ blurbs set within "come home" can be found here x

⌑ “come home” season masterlist

*note: this is a part of my stranger things rewrite, “come home”, and other seasons can be found linked above :)

#steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things rewrite #slowburn #angst #wdtai #m's writing #get ready gamers #season two is alllll about steve and the kids #this is the season ive been waiting for <3

[makethosenarratorsfight]

UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE C

*NOTE; propaganda is out of order due to poll length!

Eugenides Propaganda:

the entire plot hinges on a detail he lets the reader (and every other character) assume is true. I don't want to spoil it because it's a really fun reveal but he is lying from the first second he appears on the page and you can't trust him to tell the full truth about ANYTHING related to himself and his goals. he mostly does it to keep his advantage and not have other characters be suspicious of him but it's just so fun when you realise he's been lying the whole time

Harrowhark Propaganda:

She gave herself a lobotomy and gives completely incorrect flashbacks to the previous book. Things that straight up did not happen. Gaslight gatekeep girlboss.

She’s schizophrenic (confirmed by the author) and also lives in a world with necromancy and ghostly revenants. She’s not just an unreliable narrator for readers, she’s an unreliable narrator of her own internal experience. She knows this and has to work with people around her to compensate for it. Descent into spoilerville below. Seriously Do Not Read if you want to read these books. There’s also the little matter about how she is *not actually the narrator* of a huge chunk of the story that we are initially led to believe is being told from her perspective.

(Spoilers) Holy shit she is THE most unreliable narrator. This gremlin gave herself a lobotomy so that she could forget about Gideon Nav, the most important person in her life (for magic soul-preserving reasons) so half of the second book in the series is spent gaslighting the reader about a book they just read. She comes up with an entire alternate version of the events of the first book in the series to carefully exclude any mentions of Gideon, and any time someone says ‘Gideon’ in front of her she LITERALLY has a stroke and/or an intercranial hemorrhage as her brain overwrites the word with someone else’s name. God occasionally intentionally triggers her memory revision to get out of difficult conversations. She also hallucinates ALL the time (unrelated to the lobotomy). She shows up at her frenemy’s room in the middle of the night (think little kid stumbling to their parents’ room and saying “I frew up”) to ask her to come check underneath her bed for the corpse that’s been wandering the space station. When frenemy checks underneath the bed, frenemy claims not to see anything, and Harrow is such an unbelievably unreliable narrator that it’s an open question in the fandom as to whether frenemy genuinely didn’t see the corpse or if frenemy was just yanking Harrow’s chain. Harrow is also haunted by a literal ghost that fucks up her already fucked up alternate history. Girlie will pick up a piece of paper and read from it the most violent and haunting piece of prose ever composed, when in reality all that’s written on the paper is the elementary school Superman S*. I am NOT joking that is a real goddamn scene. Harrow was created to win this poll. TLDR; she has brain damage and memory loss, she hallucinates, and is also haunted. * https://twitter.com/vestenet/status/1301012651145859072

Girl is so unreliable, she unreliably tells me events I was there for!!! She's retelling the previous book and I'm like "girlie, this is absolutely not how it happened". Also, she gave herself a DIY lobotomy, it has to impact your memory center I guess

She literally had a lobotomy, how can she be reliable

More Propaganda under cut!

Harrowhark is simply the unreliable narrator of all time. Can’t remember shit because of a lifetime of trauma? Check. Maybe lying to yourself and those around you a bit? Most definitely. Being gaslit by the survivors you depend on to orient you to reality? For sure. How about a little bit of canon schizophrenia? She’s got it all. Ghosts? Or something? Spirits that are attached in some way to your body and are not perceivable by others? Sure, sure! But how about spirits that are attached in some way to your body and are gonna use you to hijack others’ bodies and maybe kill God, too? Absolutely. Wee bit of DIY brain surgery? If it would make you an unreliable narrator, friends, then Harrowhark Nonagesimus has been there, been subjected to that!

Okay I don't know that much about this series since I haven't convinced myself to read all of the first book, but this is my blorbo in law so I'd feel bad not spreading propaganda (all of what I'm saying is something I've read, as to prevent myself from straight up submitting misinformation). So all of Harrow's unreliable narration takes place in the second book, Harrow the Ninth. Basically, without her even seemingto acknowledge it, Harrow's brain is very fucked up during this book, to the point where even she's not sure how reliable her narrative is. There's many questions left unclear as a result of her fucked up little brain, like what's real, what's fake, whether we can trust her judgement, whether even she can trust her own judgement, whether her original cavalier is dead or not (Harrow is convinced she is), etc. Let me tell you, I adore unreliable narrators who aren't even that sure if they're reliable. I have yet to eat that trope up here in this circumstance, but this poll might not run again by the time I do, so for now, here's my messed up blorbo in law.

OKAY SO REMEMBER MY GIDEON SUBMISSION? HARROW DOESN’T! SPOILERS AHEAD BECAUSE SHE LOBOTOMIZED HERSELF TO FORGET GIDEON BECAUSE THAT’S A HEALTHY WAY TO GRIEVE AND THEN IN THE ONLY PARTS OF HER BOOK THAT SHE NARRATES (THE REVISED CANAAN HOUSE PARTS) IT’S LITERALLY A ROOM FULL OF GHOSTS HER BRAIN SUMMONED TO DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT SHE CUT HER BRAIN IN HALF TO FORGET GIDEON. she also is a) haunted and b) psychotic, experiencing hallucinations her entire life of both the ghosts haunting her and less supernatural hallucinations- bells tolling, bones rattling, her parents (some of the only dead people NOT haunting her), etc! in the revised history of canaan house that her brainghosts invent, she brings along someone who knows about her psychosis to help reality check her when she tells him go! her caregiver as a child and support when she got older, crux, is a horrible man- but at one point, when someone other than harrow is in harrow’s body and tells him “i am not harrowhark, i am sorry,” his response is simply “aye, you’ve said that before too. who are you then, if not my lady harrowhark?” showing his familiarity with her psychosis and his love for the child he wouldn’t dare see as a daughter. but enough about that lets talk about her unreliable narration! she lies about her feelings of course but she also simply hides the truth from everyone, all the time, compulsively. also literally the entire section of her book that she narrates is a lie she’s telling US about a lie she’s telling HERSELF and no one understands even a little bit of the truth until like the last act of the book. queen.

#eugenides #the queens thief #queens thief #harrowhark #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrow the ninth #unreliable narrator battle #unreliable narrators #polls #side c

[sanjerina]

Not to go off, but:

- structural, racial, and financial inequalities make it next to impossible for some parents to parent effectively (because they’re working six jobs and/or are in prison and/or are chronically ill);

- their kids go to understaffed and underfunded schools who are expected to provide not just education but also child care, mentoring, mediation, and twelve other unfunded mandates to support their students;

- the kids wind up trying to parent themselves and counsel their friends in schools that are not following through on their IEPs, not providing effective classroom management, and not able to keep sufficient adults around for supervision — and schools are thence full of dysregulated children. many of them high as balls, who do not feel safe;

- and our health insurance companies give me and my colleagues in community mental health like 8-12 therapy sessions to fix alllll of that and refer them out to community supports that either don’t take public insurance or straight up don’t exist.

(Plus we still don’t agree on best practices for teaching people to safely use television and the internet, much less these damn smartphones, and our brains are still running hardware from 150,000 years before the Neolithic Revolution.)

So not to kvetch or anything? but I think the rich assholes who have been profiteering off of the aforementioned inequalities should be obligated to spend a few billion dollars to fund some smart people who have been trying to actually fix, like, literally any part of this.

I ranted yesterday at the end of this post about C-PTSD about the extensive damage chronic stress and chaos does to brains. We have set up a system in which this damage is almost unavoidable for a vast number of people, and it’s only snowballing out of control as the generational trauma continues to rack up. (This shit was already endemic when I was a kid, and I’m old enough to be some of these kids’ grandparents.)

We continue to ask more out of workers, more out of children, and more out of their schools, and while thank GOD people are finally talking openly about the impact on mental health, community mental health centers designed to patch you up and send you back for more systemic damage are … not gonna be enough.

Like, it’s something! Therapy will and can and does help! But if you are sensing the game is rigged, I am here to validate the shit out of that for you.

And yet. And yet. We go on. Gotta haul on that moral arc and bend it. 💛

#mental health #us education #late stage capitalism #systemic inequality #complex post traumatic stress disorder #children are people #so are parents #aunt sanj says touch grass drink water and take your damn meds

[daemon-in-my-head]

Okay, my actual unpopular opinion. Cw for abuse/amnesia/head injury. I'm feeling in a venty mood today.

I think Larian did a piss poor job with Durge. There are some incredibly heavy and dark themes in the Durge Storyline but they're used for fucking comedic relief or not really touched upon whatsoever. Their interpretation of it is 'oh lol edgy go piss yourself or smth' while completely disregarding most of the time how fucked up that story is.

In general, I severely dislike the way they handle Amnesia or head injury. The characters just accept that they know jack shit, and there's 0 way it influences them like the fuck? The fear of forgetting is a real one, and a lot of people dread that. Even more people who have lost some memories for whatever reason would like to have them back or feel grief and loss over it, but here it's literally just a cute lil character quirk despite multiple people having that? Also, a fucking Lobotomy that's touched upon maybe twice despite Durge having severe fucking brain damage, apparently still suffers dizzy spells and forgets near everything they learn again? Seriously?

Also, the whole Orin and Gortash bit. It's pretty plain obvious these people were severely abused as children and the game makes no effort to hide it, but it also lets you express 0 pity or empathy and, at best, enables you to encourage their fucking abusers? Are you shitting me? The sole fact that you gain an advantage over Orin if you straight-up torture her emotionally is so fucked up and not in a good way. You literally only have the option of disregarding her, taunting her or telling her 'yo gg you were never loved and only viewed as a tool by everyone around you'. I get they're villains, but making fun of abuse is in no way cool, to say the least, and the game in previous acts had a very clear stance that not everything is black and white, so why is it suddenly fine to portray people in that exact way? "Everyone deserves a chance except for these guys in particular."

I love all these characters and the game in general, in fact I pretty exclusively play Durge (just not how they intended), but I have very passionate feelings about how they and their stories are being (mis-)treated so blatantly. Yeah, sure, not everyone can have the same amount of content or care as Astarion, but giving you the option to learn about how fucked up their life was and then only say, 'oh lol u deserved far worse actually' is incredibly fucking poor taste. And forgetting massive parts of your life is not just a cute little quirk or plot device but a very real response to physical and psychological trauma. Which they imply it is in these cases too but we're just gonna brush that off.

#oh buddy i stripped this of a lot but you get the gist #cw abuse #cw child abuse #bg3 critical #larian critical #bg3 spoilers #enver gortash #bg3 durge #durge #dark urge #orin the red #remember this is a game but the people youre talking to are real #thanks.

[rielzero]

Just saw your post about ascended Astarion and male Tav fanfic. I am willing to rise to the challenge

If you need any prompts! here's some concept I've danced with in my head (up for anyone to use) inspired by my own character's potential AUs. Please do not claim ownership over the ideas, I'd love to see people's different spins. Please keep it to Male Tav, there's so many Female Tav fics out there already- I had ideas specifically with a male character in mind. M x M focus is preferred. I'm not bi or pan, so anything hinting to tav being exclusively gay is nice.

THESE ARE all PROMPTS / IDEAS not demands. I'm not here to control anyone's creative progress :V

I'm just a nerd be nice

Brain Damage Tav has used the tadpole powers but refuses to become half-illitid and keeps it how it is. Tav ascends Astarion- but is convinced by Jaheira or someone else that he is incapable of feeling love now and becomes afraid of him- (Astarion still is very much capable of love) Astarion responds of course like a scorned ex, and lies through his teeth when the break up happens and breaks tav's heart. Timeskip- it is revealed Tav's altered brain still has mindflayer powers, but because of the trauma of the final fight he suffers from severe memory loss and pretty much got themselves in a position were he is dying- only for Astarion to come around and save him by turning him- then be met with guilt and over-protectiveness when he realizes Tav does not remember their time together anymore. (would work for a series, this concept is what I intend to use for an AU of my character but it would be very different.) Lots of angst but soft ascended astarion towards male tav :3 very gentle- very protective.

You were There too AU were Tav was kept by Cazador but never turned, just kept as a snack- so Astarion knows him and they may have fallen in love during that time. During the ritual Cazador threatens to replace Astarion with Tav- Astarion goes feral.

I forget you're an Urchin Playing into the fact that Astarion was a corrupted Noble- knows what luxury life is like- inspired by how my tav is an urchin and very unfamiliar with luxury- Tav is Astarion's consort- but is very awkward not knowing ANYTHING about noble life, from etiquette to wearing jewelry and fancy garbs. Wholesome stuff- Probably lots of fluff. Astarion spoiling Tav and showing him off.

Three of them AU were Gale and Astarion and Tav are a in a polycule, after ascension Astarion becomes a little overly possessive over Tav- Gale notices a bit late and feels left out, but supports his loved ones new life goals... Of world domination.

I'm married, get over it Au were male tav has an horrible ex who breaks in the mansion because he thinks tav is enslaved to Astarion- but he's not- He's just as evil as Astarion. And they're very affectionate- Astarion enjoys rubbing it into the ex's face. Extra points if the ex is a human cleric, paladin, or bard with too much facial hair. (COUGHS)

Warlock? cool Any fic that plays into the warlock theme openly for tav, not similary to Wyll- all though I don't want to restrict anyone to a specific type of patron. (my patron is a great old one) keep in mind there's warlock patrons outside of the subclasses in the bg3 game if you need inspiration. If tav's patron is female, give them a mother-son kind of bond since tav is gay.

Other, Tropes I like described vaguely cuz my brain stoopid but ideas that can be expanded into one fic or more -oh shit you're dying don't worry I can fix it with a bite -you're so beautiful I want a 100 paintings of you akjdkhgkfhgk -The gods literally made you to ruin me god damn it I should've known -tav is small / fragile looking man but he can stab you 100 times over -tav can sing, or is creative but he doesn't like sharing this side of him (loki is 100% exactly this lol) hes easily embarrassed -tav is internally panicking because he is very very very gay. -tav has scars too and is very insecure about his body. -overprotectiveness, lots of handholding keep you close kinda stuff -wholesome physical affection, does not have sexual implications even if they talk dirty or flirt silly -words being used like petite, twink- or cute in the right context. -maybe a fic focussing on tav being half elf and the struggles that come with it. Otherwise leave race up to reader. -Tav was already a vampire before they met, or is a dhampir -Astarion and tav knew each other 200 years ago -I will pet you aggressively and affectionally and you will like it -who the fuck are you drawing? wait thats me??? oh -Astarion is creative too and might doodle. -love at first sight but in denial.. cuz its funny -tav has insomnia and needs cuddles... -tav is a necromancer and familiar with vampire lore. -anything reflecting the vampire bride/groom lore in a scene. (there's a reddit post explaining this) -Vampire hunters coming after tav in attempt to hurt Astarion because he's become pretty untouchable -Vampire Tav does not want to feed on his victims because he finds that too intimite -Vampire tav is a vampire lord too- but not an ascended one- and he isn't corrupted by greed. -Astarion technically can compel Tav, but has no desire to do so and voices this openly to anyone who tries to argue Tav is a slave. -If Astarion hurts tav by accident in any way he feels horrible and will shower him in gifts or thousands of love language things just to affirm that it was an oopsie and he did not want to do that. He'd never do that willingly. -consent consent consent anything with consent- love language is consent -tav was a sex worker himself before they met but not anymore -lots of fluff stuff -scheming husbands plotting the downfall of the world together, bonus points if tav is the mastermind and a genius -Polycule with Gale, either as Triad, or Triangle -Admiring from afar, staring- lots of staring- intense consential staring -astarion beating up tav's abusers while tav sips from a chalice like a spoiled consort -dramatic vampire parties and all the normie vampire lords are scared of Astarion and his consort -vampire politics are kind of like ballroom hissing contests with fancy banquets and showing off your partner -I will go feral if someone hurts or touches you -steer clear of the consort, or the master will gut you -jealous vampire lord tries to seduce tav but tav is very loyal to astarion and not having it -astarion gets a cleric or powerful mage in his court just to revive tav if tav dies -You offended my husband? I'm setting your village on fire -Everyone thinks the consort tav is weak- but the consort might actually be more dangerous oh no -None of the above lines have to be necessarily restricted by ingame universe, can all be AU- does not have to include the whole mindflayer drama. Rule of Cool.

Avoid these please? I personally dislike that -misgendering tav (babygirl, queen, girly, strictly effeminate- any words that might demasculinize tav, as a gay man this stuff makes me really uncomfortable) -Overly describing tav's features as if they're set without leaving it open to the reader (long hair, skin color, favorite colors, etc) -Astarion knew tav when tav was still a child and Astarion was an adult. -Astarion abusing tav physically, just.. Please no. -...they're teenagers in high school... *dies* -brainwashing.. No offense to people who like some tropes I don't- You're fine :V We all have different tastes!

Headcanons for how Ascension works that you can use (inspired by ingame dialogue and such) -Tav isn't a regular spawn, but a vampire groom- He was turned differently, not buried for 2 days. Astarion can sense Tav is in danger if he is a groom, or sense strong emotions from him. -Tav is not immune to sunlight unless he stays in close range of Astarion. (based on dialogue) -Astarion might be a bit warmer to the touch since he is a living vampire now. He does not have to feed on blood- but Tav still requires blood and is cold to the touch.

Might edit this post later with more.

#bg3 #male tav #astarion x male tav #astarion x male reader #prompts #these are some of my preferences #vampire #ascended astarion #astarion bg3 #fanfiction #fanfic prompts #ideas

[nourrris]

peter parker

(going off the tom holland vr! this is going to be a very long ramble about the character) i cant get over how genuinely hauntingly sad peter parker is, when the idea of peter parker was created, (to be different incomparsion of other characters), because you have a teenager superhero - it's such a good concept mind you - but god? having somebody so young have such a large role on their shoulders is insane, and it's so interesting because just the change in age literally completely fundamentally changes his characters actions and future, he'll have more impulsive decisions, extreme mental issues (which is unavoidable in his situation), and simply a very difficult time trying to navigate.

his level of severe childhood trauma (which quite literally gives you a form of brain damage) will ultimately affect his entire future and actions, he saw his uncle die at what 14? maybe younger? that itself even without the spider-man part is horrid, he never had the chance to even grieve because he was thrown into the most life changing event of his life, he also had no parents either, he has a very significant lack of figures in his life that is so hard to change how they impacted him. what happened in homecoming was the least terrifying experience he probably went through which says alot when a whole warehouse fell upon him and he was just /inches/ way from dying near the end from the vulture.

then infinity war happens next, his fight's and experiences horribly scary situations that nobody could probably even digest at such an age, or even older. and when he 'dusted' its obvious it takes a toll on him before it even happens, he could feel it, and god isn't that scary to think of? the unstoppable force of death? then fucking endgame happens, which i honestly can't even believe the fact that if i said it wasn't the worst thing that happened to him i'd be right, even though he saw somebody who he considered a 'father' figure die in his hands.

excluding that even if tony never died peter would have never recovered mentally so normally, seeing how he was beat up to hell holding that gauntlet was so fucking terrifying. he was tossed around so much and he quite literally held the most dangerous and world altering item in his hands, and if he lost it he'd have the entire world's blame on him. thats so much responsibility a newly(?) sixteen year old should never have, you cannot possibly tell me that it wouldnt literally alter his brain from the terror.

far from home is one of my favorite movie's ever but never fails to make me cry. he didn't even get the time to grieve tony, or the fact that his entire world changed in the matter of days, or the experience it was to endure the endgame fight, how can you casually go back to school after witnessing and /participating/ in the fight that could have possibly entered in the doom of the world again or bring it all back. then mysterio happens, which in my opinion is one of the absolute worst villains that peter's fought, because he was just so human. he ruined peters life completely, and he was just another human. wouldn't that make somebody so bitter? that no your life wasn't completely thrown away to shit by the big evil purple alien, but by another full human. absolutely nothing special to him power wise, not possessed, no weird voices, he did it with pure manipulation and thats one of the worst possible things i could have imagined somebody doing to him.

because peter at the end of the day was just a complete kid, mysterio made him believe he could trust him and peter did, he just lost so much in his life that somebody who could finally understand him was all he needed to feel assured, its why the significance of that one talk they both had after fury was being a dick to peter was so important, mysterio decided to go for such an emotionally devastating route it's unbelievable. but seemingly manipulating his trust wasn't enough, he just had to fuck him up so bad with that illusion scene, putting everything he loved against him and god the stark part was so fucking cruel, but after it all the part that hurt so much to watch was when happy got to him, peter questioning if he was real is so cruel. making this poor kid unable to trust his surroundings (after also being hit by a fucking train!), when he already had so much psychological issues going on is literally the cruelest fate he could have given him at the time.

and lastly no way home, and his future at that. mysterio exposing peters identity was such an irreversible decision that i honestly believe no matter what peter did, there was nothing that could give him or his loved ones the life he wanted unless if he did try to make everybody forget him. like if he originally went to the lady to re-persuade her to let his friends in it wouldnt have worked, and it also showed that much before peter ended up saving the lady in the car, all their fates were fucked and frankly there was no good way to get out of it, he was so absolutely doomed.

may parkers death was the worst of it all i think, i believe from everything that's happened to him, that absolutely nothing would affect him the way she died did. every other death of a loved one that had happened he couldn't truly take the blame for, but knowing how everything lead up to him is the most excruciatingly important detail. he canonically blames himself and i dont believe that feeling will ever end up going away. there's just no way it could, the fact he was the last person who ever saw her alive, the last person she spoke too, he quite literally saw the life drain out of her, there's no way to recover after seeing the person who's been with you for longer than you can remember die in your hands, and in the hands of your accidental actions.

i dont think there was a world were he could have escaped that death coming, peters identity being out as spider-man would have definitely done something in the future, and the problem is everything in no-way home happened in the smallest time stamp ever, i could be wrong but i believe it all went down in a few days at most, there was no way to even comprehend the absolute mental load and overwhelming amount of information being handed to him, nor do i think he'll manage to get over it easily later on either. the idea of different versions of him existing is so much to chew on, the idea of other versions of him living the happier life he could have, ones that never have the people he loves in them, ones where the people he loved are still alive, or some of them even. he even directly saw worlds where their peter parkers arent forced to be forgotten.

this version of peter lost so much that its impossible to cope with, all the peters lost alot already, like all of them didn't have parents iirc, all lost uncle ben, but the tobey and andrew spider-man had a living aunt may, then tobey's lost harry (?), and andrew lost gwen.

this version of peter parker lost both uncle and aunts, parents (of course), and tony stark. this is all just by death, he also lost his best friends, and girlfriend. they stay forever out of reach which is so tauntingly cruel. because he starts at 13/15 (pre homecoming) and by 17 (nwh) he's at the same point of all the other spider-man's started where theyre practically completely alone, or just experienced such a stark change to their lives.

my boy....... he deserves better..... sorry this is so long i had alot to say and i dont get the chance to talk about peter much and ive been recently hyperfixated on him since early feb and i love him so much and cant stop thinking or crying about him . also do tell me if i got any info wrong cause' ive only watched the tom holland trilogy, so im a bit uninformed there but did try to do some research!

#peter parker #spiderman tom holland #spiderman #marvel mcu #mysterio #tony stark #okay thats all i think...

[twinsarekeepers]

Let me preface this by saying, I’m a pre-med student who works in a psychology lab as a research assistant and has also worked in a doctor’s office with actual patients. A lot of my opinions about this ending are informed by that aspect of myself, but that does not mean I don’t understand the incredible weight and horror of Joel’s decision either. I am also a writer and the narrative of a parent’s love being that destructive is so compelling.

However, it’s not more important to me than making sure people know how egregiously terrible the Fireflies are. Because the logic that something can morally outweigh informed consent is what has led to some truly horrific, catastrophic events in our REAL human history. Henrietta Lacks, the Tuskegee study, and the CIA’s fake vaccination drive in Pakistan come to mind immediately for me. These are all events that I encourage everyone to learn about.

Putting all that aside for now, objectively, Jerry Anderson was stupid and wrong in every way possible. You never ever want to completely destroy the subject you are working on, ESPECIALLY if that is the only one you have. Because wtf are you going to do if your experiment doesn’t work? You killed the one source! Literally anything would’ve been better than KILLING ELLIE?? Killing her should be the very last resort after exhausting every other possible avenue, which they didn’t. (Before someone tells me that I need to suspend my disbelief … no. The whole show is rooted in realism and that this is a possibility SCIENTIFICALLY … so I’m going to think about it with my science brain, I’m sorry!)

Now onto the part that I know y’all are going to get your panties in a twist about, Ellie herself and her capacity to give consent. Which in my opinion, coming from someone whose literal job it is to get informed consent, she did not have.

Bodily autonomy and agency is obviously very important but you would never let your child run into oncoming traffic because “oh, it’s their body and I’d be violating their autonomy and agency if I physically held them back!!” Like no. That’s a child that doesn’t fully grasp what they are doing or what is going on around them so you as the adult must make the decision to not let them harm themselves.

Ellie is a slew of red flags to someone who would be searching for participants for an experiment. For one, Ellie is a child. Getting informed consent from a child is already hard because their brains are not developed enough to fully grasp and understand what they’d be agreeing to. Two, Ellie has gone through immense trauma and is suffering from the worst case of survivor’s guilt to possibly ever exist. She literally feels like the only way to compensate for her loss is to die. She is the definition of passively suicidal. The way I would rule her out of a study so fast and send her links to every helpline I know. And yes, I know that she can never actually get the help she needs. But in my opinion, she is not in any way able to give consent and Jerry and nurses should’ve been very aware of that.

So, the fact that the Fireflies are just medically inept, and on top of that, didn’t care to get consent, and even if they had, it wouldn’t matter because Ellie is not in a position to be making that kind of decision, makes them very, very wrong.

Does that make Joel right? No. Because Joel wasn’t thinking about any of that. He believed that the Fireflies knew what they were doing, that they had a shot at making a cure and he also knew what Ellie would want (again, she’s still not a position to give consent but JOEL DOESN’T KNOW THAT BECAUSE HE’S NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL) and he still chose to save Ellie over … the entire world. And then he lied to her about it.

(And the lie was to protect her emotionally because he knows she takes on so much blame and he doesn’t want to cause even MORE damage and pile on top of that insane survivor’s guilt … but lying to a teenager is never the way to go, they always know).

TLDR: it is very, very complicated!

#the last of us #tlou #joel miller #ellie williams #joel and ellie #jerry anderson

[wishful-seeker]

Ok but can we please talk about the trauma of HEALING from chronic illness too?

For 4 YEARS I've searched and gone through countless doctors and immense pain, obviously, very traumatic.

But now i have The Medicine that literally means i get to live a full life with manageable pain instead of unbearable pain.

But guess what, THATS TRAUMATIC TOO God was like "you may i have won the war but now REBUILD EVERYTHING FROM THE GROUND UP"

Because its not like, Take The Meds = All Better Now! It's more like take the meds = feel fucking amazing compared to before the meds but still not well enough to do shit and if you TRY to do shit you will feel immense pain again and everytime it happens you'll be terrified of losing everything again.

For example, when my mom started remicade she had to be on it FOR A YEAR before she could do Things™ again

And ya know how people say being IN the traumatic situation is easier to deal with than HEALING from the trauma (and in this case also physical damage) it caused?!! Thats what im talking about

Before Medicine™ i EXPECTED to just suffer forever, everyday was never ending pain, there was stability in the pain

Now everyday is "will i hurt or feel good?" "If i feel good is that "good" stable or fragile?" Like now i have the option of getting my hopes up, and it makes pain days feel worse!

If you give me 3 weeks of feeling pretty good, then give me a month of excruciating pain, im more miserable than if i never felt good! Its fucking hard!

Today was a horrible pain day and usually i can tune out and be like "thats life ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ " but today i was fucking mad! I was cursing at my microwave bc i forgot to turn it on to heat up my heat pack and that means 1 EXTRA MINUTE OF PAIN AND ITS UNBEARABLE. Even a literal extra minute sent me into rage. Ive been crying a lot too. And not just because its a pain day, 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵. I woke up in this pain, and i didn't do anything today, or the day before to cause any flair up. Ive been in bed the entire time.

To finally have The Medicine™ means my brain IMMEDIATELY reverts back to "im SUPPOSED to feel good" which means i push myself to hard, too fast, and get my hopes up. Its fucking rough.

#chronically ill #cripple punk #disability #chronic pain

[deandraxon]

It’s kinda telling when people say “you guys spread misinformation too!” But give literally 0 examples.

With endos, they spread a very clear piece of misinformation; you can be a system without trauma.

That’s not true. You can be a system without remembering your trauma, or even with trauma you don’t personally see as traumatizing(aka denial), but you cannot be a system without any trauma.

Being a system is a form of brain damage. That’s trauma. The cognitive functions that turned you into a full single person didn’t do their job for some reason.

Trauma doesn’t automatically mean some sort of abuse, it could literally mean physical trauma caused by some sort of injury- not from abuse. Like an accident. Or by seeing something that caused mental trauma, because you were a literal child who couldn’t comprehend what you were seeing.

It only takes one incident for your little baby brain to change chemically forever.

“You guys don’t care about misinformation in your own circles!” Says who? If I personally see misinformation being spread, I care. I care immensely.

“Well I saw on reddit” that’s your problem. You’re on fucking reddit. Just as bad as tiktok. Those places are misinformation mines, that’s why I don’t go there.

The “no you” card doesn’t work on me.

#fuck outta here #did system #pdid system #anti endo #endos dni #not endo safe

[aihoshiino]

hi! what are your thoughts on the mothers in oshi no ko?

hello anon!! I sat on this one for a little bit because it really made me sit and go Hm to myself so sorry for the wait but i hope this is still shrimptresting to read.

that said I am going to uh immediately circumvent the actual text of this question to get more into the spirit of things so, whoops on that!

this question actually got me to think about motherhood as a theme in oshi no ko and i was kind of surprised to turn it over in my brain and realize just how prominent of a motif it is - which i guess is silly given that the first chapter/episode is called 'mother and children' and the whole series literally is called The Children Of The Girl Whomst I Stan but........................

i think it's interesting that Ai is not only a point of comparison for all the other girls in the entertainment industry as a sort of perfect ideal idol for everyone to live up to and aspire to emulate but she also sort of ends up being this same sort of symbol in terms of motherhood, too - which is pretty powerful to me when you consider that in just about every way imaginable, Ai was an incredible un-ideal mother. She was an abused child with no healthy parenting modelled for her, she was underage and a single mom and forced to keep her relationship with her kids a secret. She had deep, deep trauma that prevented her from connecting to them as fully as she wanted to.

But all that stuff is ultimately made almost irrelevant by the sheer force and purity of the love Ai had for her children. At every single step she made the right choices for them out of overflowing, overwhelming love and compassion and a desire to give them happiness and opportunities that she herself was not given.

In that sense, Ai is not just a point of comparison but also a condemnation. If you look around the rest of the cast, you'll notice again and again how the huge impact that mothers are shown to have on their children – and how neglectful or outright abusive mothers leave lasting scars on the children in their care. Ai was horrifically physically abused and later abandoned by her birth mother. Sarina suffered under a toxic mother who valued her own convenience and comfort over those of her terminally ill child and ultimately neglected and abandoned her. Gorou lost his mother in childbirth and never knew her and grew up with an implied to be strained relationship with his grandmother as a result. Kana was shopped around as a commodity by her mother, forcing her own desire for fame onto her daughter, only to be abused and later abandoned when she could not give her mother what she was asking for.

It's not just actively bad or neglectful mothers who have this sort of impact - we see through Memcho how a well-meaning and mutually loving parent-child relationship can be complicated by outside factors, forcing responsibilities and caretaking on the child that should not have been theirs to shoulder in such a way that Mem felt as though she had no choice but to abandon her own dreams and wants to prioritize said responsibilities. She puts on a brave face but this is obviously something that still causes her pain.

This is what I mean when I say Ai is a condemnation of sorts. Ai had just about every possible roadblock in her way to being a good mother, but she actively chose at every point she could up to her actual honest to god dying breaths to pour out love, to value and uplift her children in every way that she possibly could. This poses a sort of subtextual question-by-comparison to every mother in the series who fails to do the same: what's your excuse? If Ai could do this, why couldn't you?

Motherhood is hard as fuck, to be clear! Raising a child is back breaking, thankless, joyful work. The vast majority of abusive and toxic mothers do not actively decide to harm their children - but they do decide to make the choices that will cause harm and pain as collateral damage.

But again, that question: if someone with every imaginable hurdle in their way could make the right choices again and again and again, what's stopping everybody else?

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting

[feiandart]

This is something people asked me more than a couple times until now in the comments, both in the Italian version of Sugar and in the English one. I often answer this with a couple paragraphs of light explanations, but you know what? Have a seat, I'll actually talk about this in a proper way and this may be a very long ride.

I warn you: I'm writing this from my mobile in my free time. This means early in the morning or late at night after a whole day doing things. My brain is shit in those moments so you could find a lot of errors. I'm sorry if my English will be poor, I'm not really able to correct anything. (Also, I prefer to give you my honest flow without corrections. That may actually help getting the right vibe from all of this? I hope so).

But let's go to the proper answer.

I've been asked: "how much of your life do you process through words?"

There is no easy way to say this, no way to avoid being honest here. The reality is that I put all of my life into this story. There might be a lot of differences in the events, but the feelings, all the traumas I talk about, things the characters say, think or do, all of that is mine. I could literally take pieces from all the chapters and give all of them deep explanations on how those are not just mine, but me. I am between the lines, hidden inside all the metaphors, stuck under the weight of the baddest chapters, trying to breathe after writing the most emotional ones.

I know it's a fanfiction. I know the story is not perfect, that there may be holes in the plot and the characters may seem badly shaped, rough, not real. I know, I am not a professional writer, I might make mistakes. This is no excuse, mind me, but not everything in life is coherent or logical as we often see in the media. We can spend hours or a lifetime creating the perfect story with everything perfectly crafted but that doesn't make it real, because incoherence is a huge part of the human experience. And that is what I want Sugar to be: human, not perfect. Realistic when it comes to emotions and relationships, not necessarily in its plot or events. I want it to be a trip into the deep abyss of an injured mind, trying to hold on with a broken heart, not three unicorns running to Candy Mountain. I want to break you into pieces and slowly help to put everything back together.

Look guys, I get it as much as I get that is not actually a story for everyone. You open it expecting another plot and I give you a bad time instead. You think it's something about a sugar babe and his daddy and I give you traumas and none of that. You come for the smut and I put old wounds and control needs over that too, also denying it for a whole half of the story. Truth is, I am a scammer. You come for a Good Omens fanfiction and I break the characters apart, twisting them to the point they might be the same to the very core, but nothing like it on the outside. You have to dive deep to find them.

My God, what am I even doing?

They asked me, "do you choose your words with care, don't you?"

Oh, dear Lord, I am so sorry because maybe people really think I plot all the metaphors, I think properly of all the dialogues, but what if I don't? Most of the time I don't, really. I just put my hands on the keyboard and let them free to go wherever they want. I type whole pages and emerge right after without having the faintest clue of what I wrote. I need to come back multiple times to check if I got what I wanted in the correct way. Hopefully, it does almost all the time. I know where I start and I know where I want to be in the end, the middle of it is pure instinct and emotions. I know how my characters would behave and play them like a TV show in my mind, while describing scenes on the screen.

( There might be some kind of light spoilers from now on. Mind how you go! )

I know I am using Crowley as the raw essence of a damaged mind and heart. He uses crude metaphors, always talks with anger and uses blood and storms in his speech, because he is instinct, he's a tide, he's greed personified and wants everything he could get cause he truly got nothing in his life. He is the passion who can't be contained, he uses art to process his emotions, he uses music to lose himself in something familiar, hoping someone else could help him find his way back home. He uses gardening to grow things because in his life nothing seems to last long. He can't look at tomorrow without fear, but grows things he hopes will last more than him. Life was not good with him, but he wasn't good with his life either. He did nothing, letting time pass without actually building anything, living the days as they come, drowning his pain in wine or between someone else's legs. He knows most of what he is, most of what he's done, is not healthy. But he never really cared before.

And then there is Aziraphale, which apparently is a walking red flag, traumas personified on two working legs, scared of everything hiding outside his door. He got everything. He has money, a big house, books, some people working with him, and is content. So content his heart yells and cries because he's lonely. So content he can't really control his whole life because he is his own antagonist. So content he's not really scared of what hides outside the door, because what's inside is worst. He uses the softest metaphors, he uses his books to tell stories and talk about himself, he can't really speak is mind and talks, talks, talks so much! He wins arguments because he drags his opponents into exhaustion. He talks them to death, using whole paragraphs of elegant, perfectly crafted phrases and quotes he can shield himself with. He's not like Crowley, just getting started on this new channel of communication, no, Aziraphale is well trained. He has thousands of books he can use to get where he wants and still use his experience poorly because he thinks people are just like the books and guess what? That's not true. People are something else.

It's actually funny how I just condensate two parts of me into two different characters.

Crowley holds my outside, and this is why you have his POV for the entire story. You see the world with his distorted, unreliable vision, you see raw desire to be accepted, the need to be truly seen by someone, big pieces of his mind, his dissociations, his fear, his low self esteem, the thousands of radios turned on in his mind, his incapability to let things truly go, is head full of canvases he never finish. And then you see his rage and you're not sure how much that will last. Yeah, that is me. Welcome to myself.

Aziraphale holds my inside. This is why we never get his POV. Too easy, too deep, too much. He is scared. He needs control. He wants and can't get. He hopes and does nothing. He's stuck in his home, with his books, and finds himself at ease there. He thinks he's safe but he's not. He's a living contradiction and at the same time he's not.

God, what was the question again?

Maybe I wrote too much. Maybe this is not enough. All I can say is that there's something really important in this story, and that is Crowley asking Aziraphale to "look at him", 'cause all he wants is to bee seen.

But in the end, what is happening here is you looking at me. And it's strange to get so naked in front of so many strangers. But it's also good and positive to me to be seen, for once.

So, thank you. Really, thank you. 'cause with every chapter you allow me to express myself in a way I never did in 30 years. Thank you so much.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #sugar #deep down fei's heart #fanfiction #fanfiction writer #there's something deep down you need to understand to be truly free #thank you so much for helping me express myself #this is extremely personal so don't read if you don't care

[ordinarydoodles]

I came home from work and immediately wrote this in a frenzied fugue state

I like thinking up plausible rules for how magic would work in a fantasy world. Yeah, yeah, I can hear the people now going “it’s magic, dummy, it doesn’t need rules,” but hear me out. Magic is inherently more interesting if there’s a logical framework underlying it.

For example, take healing magic. Let me show you two different magical worlds, and you decide which one would be more interesting to put a story in.

World 1: To do healing magic, you say a spell and the person is healed. No one’s quite sure how it works, but it works so no one’s complaining. Some people are more gifted and their spells are stronger or work faster. Again, no one knows why. They’re just special.

World 2: To do healing magic, you have two main options: the easy way or the hard way.

The hard way involves a studying the body and the body’s natural healing processes for years before even trying to heal something as small as a papercut.

Magical energy is carefully directed into specific types of cells and manipulated to speed up specific cellular processes in very precise ways to achieve a desired result. Immense control is important, because improperly controlled magical energy can result in deformities, physical trauma, rapid depletion of the patient’s energy leading to death, incredibly healthy and virulent pathogens, and massive amounts of cancer.

Healers are incredibly rare. Becoming a healer requires decades of intense study, and the majority of students end up opting to study nonmagical medicine. Those who are able to master healing magic, however, can work literal miracles.

The easy way involves using magic to try and shove all or part of your body backwards through your personal timeline to the point before you were injured or infected.

It’s quick, dirty, incredibly painful, and nearly always involves negative side effects such as headaches, body aches, hearing loss, bone loss, organ damage, brain damage, amnesia, psychosis, having a baby head on an adult body, rapidly aging backwards into nonexistence, rapidly aging forwards into nonexistence, dying, dying and reviving, dying and reviving over and over and over again, explosions, implosions, teleportation, wormholes, suddenly disappearing with a ‘ZWORP!’ sound, incomprehensible distortions to the local laws of physics, demons*, and massive amounts of cancer.

Practitioners of the easy way of healing are mainly hucksters who will tell you that doctors hate them because they know one weird trick to solve every medical problem, wackadoos trying to chase eternal life, insane, desperate, or dead.

*Demons are a race naturally capable of sensing and manipulating spacetime. They usually show up to watch, give unhelpful advice, and cheer wildly when something horrific happens. Sometimes they bring snacks and lawn chairs.

Like, I don’t know about you, but World 2 sounds infinitely more interesting. Like, I thought up World 2 in about 10 seconds, and World 2 still got me so excited that I just spent a few hours imagining a dozen scenarios which could happen under the implied rules of magic there.

Maybe slime monsters happened because someone accidentally used healing magic to boost the growth potential of some amoeba and they got huge!

Maybe zombies happen when someone is dying and reviving simultaneously!

Maybe you can hire healers to change your body to your specifications!

Maybe ancient people changing their bodies is what lead to the existence of intelligent humanoid fantasy species!

Maybe a historian finds proof that, rather than other intelligent humanoid species deriving from humans, all intelligent humanoid species, including humans, come from a mysterious progenitor species!

Maybe the historian stumbles upon evidence of that this progenitor species may still exist, and they go on a quest to find them and learn where all the peoples of this world came from! Maybe they end up on the trail of a member of this species, but the creature seems to possess impossible abilities, and every new piece of information just leads to more questions.

Maybe there’s a determined detective hunting down the world’s most prolific serial killer, haunted by the knowledge that no one else believes the killer even exists. They use magic to create fatal health conditions that make the deaths look natural, and no one seems to be willing to even entertain the possibility that a healer could do such a thing. Maybe the killer has begun to leave taunting messages for the detective hidden within the bodies of the victims.

Maybe the historian and the detective cross paths and, in a shocking twist, realize that they are looking for the exact same individual.

Maybe they both jump as they hear slow, sarcastic applause coming out of the dark, and turn to see a tear in reality, showing a different world. In front of it is a figure.

Later, they will disagree on what exactly they saw, their descriptions changing, as if it was impossible to accurately remember what the creature looked like. Only fragments came through.

Unnatural proportions.

Strange hands.

Eyes of an indescribable color.

Skin that seemed to give off light.

The sensation of laughter and music without sound.

Beauty.

Danger.

They are staring at something their eyes refuse to comprehend. Every sense is screaming that they are in danger, they need to run, but they are completely unable to move, their limbs frozen by a will that is not their own. The creature gives a mocking bow and disappears, leaving behind a perfect circle of mushrooms.

This is the first verified sighting of an elf.

#my writing #I had a quick thought about healing magic and went “haha that would fit really well with my 'Cthulu accidentally created vampires' universe #so I decided to quick jot it down and then I lost three hours making this #fantasy #magic #I want to make a story in this world but I have no idea what the hell it would be or where it would go

[makethosenarratorsfight]

UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE C

*NOTE; Due to the length of Harrowhark's propaganda, it is out of order and below Kuzco's propaganda

Kuzco Propaganda:

The movie starts with them doing the voiceover, telling us how he'll show us that evil people ruined his life for no reason at all, before proceeding to show him fire a loyal advisor, announce to a guy he'll chase him and his whole village away from the homes they've been living in for generations, just to build a summer villa with pool for himself, have a guy thrown off a window for being on his way when he was freedancing, etc., etc. Then as his life is ruined and we get back to the point at the beginning from which he had started the flash back which took half the movie, he's like "see? for no reason!"

Harrowhark Propaganda:

She gave herself a lobotomy and gives completely incorrect flashbacks to the previous book. Things that straight up did not happen. Gaslight gatekeep girlboss.

She’s schizophrenic (confirmed by the author) and also lives in a world with necromancy and ghostly revenants. She’s not just an unreliable narrator for readers, she’s an unreliable narrator of her own internal experience. She knows this and has to work with people around her to compensate for it. Descent into spoilerville below. Seriously Do Not Read if you want to read these books. There’s also the little matter about how she is *not actually the narrator* of a huge chunk of the story that we are initially led to believe is being told from her perspective.

(Spoilers) Holy shit she is THE most unreliable narrator. This gremlin gave herself a lobotomy so that she could forget about Gideon Nav, the most important person in her life (for magic soul-preserving reasons) so half of the second book in the series is spent gaslighting the reader about a book they just read. She comes up with an entire alternate version of the events of the first book in the series to carefully exclude any mentions of Gideon, and any time someone says ‘Gideon’ in front of her she LITERALLY has a stroke and/or an intercranial hemorrhage as her brain overwrites the word with someone else’s name. God occasionally intentionally triggers her memory revision to get out of difficult conversations. She also hallucinates ALL the time (unrelated to the lobotomy). She shows up at her frenemy’s room in the middle of the night (think little kid stumbling to their parents’ room and saying “I frew up”) to ask her to come check underneath her bed for the corpse that’s been wandering the space station. When frenemy checks underneath the bed, frenemy claims not to see anything, and Harrow is such an unbelievably unreliable narrator that it’s an open question in the fandom as to whether frenemy genuinely didn’t see the corpse or if frenemy was just yanking Harrow’s chain. Harrow is also haunted by a literal ghost that fucks up her already fucked up alternate history. Girlie will pick up a piece of paper and read from it the most violent and haunting piece of prose ever composed, when in reality all that’s written on the paper is the elementary school Superman S*. I am NOT joking that is a real goddamn scene. Harrow was created to win this poll. TLDR; she has brain damage and memory loss, she hallucinates, and is also haunted. * https://twitter.com/vestenet/status/1301012651145859072

Girl is so unreliable, she unreliably tells me events I was there for!!! She's retelling the previous book and I'm like "girlie, this is absolutely not how it happened". Also, she gave herself a DIY lobotomy, it has to impact your memory center I guess

She literally had a lobotomy, how can she be reliable

Rest of Propaganda under cut!

Harrowhark is simply the unreliable narrator of all time. Can’t remember shit because of a lifetime of trauma? Check. Maybe lying to yourself and those around you a bit? Most definitely. Being gaslit by the survivors you depend on to orient you to reality? For sure. How about a little bit of canon schizophrenia? She’s got it all. Ghosts? Or something? Spirits that are attached in some way to your body and are not perceivable by others? Sure, sure! But how about spirits that are attached in some way to your body and are gonna use you to hijack others’ bodies and maybe kill God, too? Absolutely. Wee bit of DIY brain surgery? If it would make you an unreliable narrator, friends, then Harrowhark Nonagesimus has been there, been subjected to that!

Okay I don't know that much about this series since I haven't convinced myself to read all of the first book, but this is my blorbo in law so I'd feel bad not spreading propaganda (all of what I'm saying is something I've read, as to prevent myself from straight up submitting misinformation). So all of Harrow's unreliable narration takes place in the second book, Harrow the Ninth. Basically, without her even seemingto acknowledge it, Harrow's brain is very fucked up during this book, to the point where even she's not sure how reliable her narrative is. There's many questions left unclear as a result of her fucked up little brain, like what's real, what's fake, whether we can trust her judgement, whether even she can trust her own judgement, whether her original cavalier is dead or not (Harrow is convinced she is), etc. Let me tell you, I adore unreliable narrators who aren't even that sure if they're reliable. I have yet to eat that trope up here in this circumstance, but this poll might not run again by the time I do, so for now, here's my messed up blorbo in law.

OKAY SO REMEMBER MY GIDEON SUBMISSION? HARROW DOESN’T! SPOILERS AHEAD BECAUSE SHE LOBOTOMIZED HERSELF TO FORGET GIDEON BECAUSE THAT’S A HEALTHY WAY TO GRIEVE AND THEN IN THE ONLY PARTS OF HER BOOK THAT SHE NARRATES (THE REVISED CANAAN HOUSE PARTS) IT’S LITERALLY A ROOM FULL OF GHOSTS HER BRAIN SUMMONED TO DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT SHE CUT HER BRAIN IN HALF TO FORGET GIDEON. she also is a) haunted and b) psychotic, experiencing hallucinations her entire life of both the ghosts haunting her and less supernatural hallucinations- bells tolling, bones rattling, her parents (some of the only dead people NOT haunting her), etc! in the revised history of canaan house that her brainghosts invent, she brings along someone who knows about her psychosis to help reality check her when she tells him go! her caregiver as a child and support when she got older, crux, is a horrible man- but at one point, when someone other than harrow is in harrow’s body and tells him “i am not harrowhark, i am sorry,” his response is simply “aye, you’ve said that before too. who are you then, if not my lady harrowhark?” showing his familiarity with her psychosis and his love for the child he wouldn’t dare see as a daughter. but enough about that lets talk about her unreliable narration! she lies about her feelings of course but she also simply hides the truth from everyone, all the time, compulsively. also literally the entire section of her book that she narrates is a lie she’s telling US about a lie she’s telling HERSELF and no one understands even a little bit of the truth until like the last act of the book. queen.

#kuzco #disney kuzco #emperor's new groove #harrowhark #harrowhark nonagesimus #the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #unreliable narrator battle #unreliable narrators #polls #side c

[sapphire-weapon]

I actually agree with you analysis with Aeon, because there is one thing that’s been bugging me this whole time about their “relationship”.

Leon states in Vendetta that he is tired of all the fighting, so much to the point to where he starts drinking. But what bothers me the most is that Ada in her shitty storyline is stealing samples to later trade as per orders of Wesker.

For me, it almost undermines Leon’s goal in the sense that the one thing he wants to end is being continued by the woman he is so in love with. Because of his love with her, he’s willing to turn a blind eye to her actions all because he loves her???

Leon’s character is being questioned. Which doesn’t make sense cause his whole thing is to save people but when the girl he loves is continuing the cycle that he wants to end, he just doesn’t care??? Like Leon was top of his class in the police academy, labeled as smart. But just because he sees a pretty girl his intelligence kind of just gets thrown out the window.

I like both characters, but i feel like their little cat and mouse game destroys both characters completely.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, keep up the analysis. i’m lovin’ it!

So, this has actually been my biggest source of frustration as a critic/analyst. Back when RE6 first came out, I was still heavy in the dwrp scene, and I played through the game with my buddy Seiko (who RPed the Chris to my Leon, at the time) and I just remember both of us at varying points being like "what the fuck is he doing??" "why is he so fucking stupid?? it's like he took all of Chris's stupid pills and he's like 'no it's my turn to give myself brain damage you already had your fun. B('"

And when we first beat Leon's campaign I just dropped my controller and leaned back and said, "Well. I guess Leon just became unplayable. So much for that shit. There goes five years of RP down the fuckin toilet. Thanks for nothing, Capcom." And Seiko had to be like "No, wait, hold on. We can figure this out." And eventually she was the one who finally realized and said: "It felt like his whole campaign was a cry for help."

And I have been trying to make that work ever since -- because it is the only way to make his character make sense, after a certain point.

It actually took me the better part of two years to fully form and crystallize my analysis of "Leon projects most of his trauma onto Ada because she's familiar and convenient -- and also it's a bit of sunk cost fallacy because he wasted so much of his life trying to chase her down, so he's forced to create and live in this delusion where he's convinced himself that she's working towards the greater good, even though he has absolutely no intellectual reason to think that considering the men she's worked for -- but he still has to force himself to buy into it because his entire sense of self has become wrapped up in all of this bullshit, and for him to confront and admit that he's been wrong about her all this time would literally cause his worldview to shatter and his mental health to completely unravel into nothing."

Because RE6, as it exists, is fucking nonsense. I already thought RE4 was pushing it, because I don't know how Leon could just... be okay with Ada working for Wesker. The only explanation is that he's become convinced that she's doing it for a good reason and is going to do the right thing -- even though he has absolutely no evidence for thinking that. A delusion is the only way for it to make sense, and RE6 kicks that into overdrive.

If you were to look at Leon and Ada's relationship and call it for what it was, the very uncomfortable truth that would shake out is that Leon himself is probably one of the greatest assets contributing to the perpetuation of bioterrorism research. He not just aids the US government in their cover-up stories and cleans up their messes for them, but he also actively aids Ada's efforts while she's working for guys like Albert goddamn Wesker.

If you look at it from that perspective, the grim reality is that the world might objectively be better off if Leon was to step down from his position, withdraw from the battlefield, or even off himself like he's always wanted to. He's not just a useful idiot like Chris was for the BSAA -- he is actively part of the problem.

And there's some part of Leon that knows that. But it goes against everything he claims to stand for.

And so, the only way to make sense of his actions is the explanation that his entire sense of self is wrapped up in this, and he's too deep in that hole to dig his way out now. He's aware, on some level, of the cognitive dissonance that's happening, and that's why he drinks.

So, it is very interesting to me that Ada has been MIA from the OG timeline since 6, and that Vendetta and Death Island made the move to have Chris and Jill officially move in as Leon's support system, when he didn't have one previously -- because, with the proper support system in place, it's possible that he can dig his way out of this hole.

But what will that mean for his relationship with Ada?

And so we look at the Remake series and see the foundation it's been laying...

And suddenly the horizon starts to look very, very dark for Aeon as a ship.

#resident evil #leon kennedy #meta analysis