#because mom expects my mental illnesses to have a rational reason for this shit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

itspatsy · 6 years

Text

Okay, after much thought, here’s my attempt to explain how I’m generally okay with Trish’s trajectory this season in theory, but why I feel the writers slipped up in execution.

Addiction is a monster. It takes over your life, every facet of it, mind, body, and soul, and tears it to shreds. It controls you. It consumes you, fully. It leaves you lying to everyone around you, rationalizing, making excuses and justifications. It destroys your relationships. It makes you use, manipulate, and discard people, whether they be total strangers or your closest loved ones, because nothing is more important than getting your fix. It forces you to do things you never thought you would do, awful, immoral, degrading things. It twists you into someone you can’t even recognize. I get that. I get that this is what Trish’s storyline was about. And I get that none of the other characters were really in a position to help her deal with any of it, and how that shows the importance of having a support system to help you through a mental illness like this.

And it wasn’t a character assassination, because all the pieces were there. The barely contained rage and taste for violence, the self-protectiveness and need to be in control, the fear of vulnerability, the reckless self-destruction and lack of impulse control, the low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness, the undeveloped sense of self, the egocentrism and self-righteousness, the self-defensiveness and difficulty admitting wrongs, the envy of what others have, the obsessiveness, the apathy and trouble understanding others’ feelings, the overwhelming ambition to contribute something meaningful to the world, the desperate need to be someone that matters, really matters, to people. And there were shades of unhealthiness in her relationship with Jessica: codependency, envy, high expectations, the idealization, trying to live vicariously through her, pushing her into things that weren’t always best for her.

Those were all aspects of Trish, some more negative or harmful than others, and most of them very much a response to severe trauma and abuse. I’ve talked a lot about those aspects of her character in the past. They were part of her in s1, but tempered to manageable levels, because she was in a reasonably stable place in her life and was making an active effort to improve herself and to get better. But then her best friend and only support system disappeared for 6 months, she was almost murdered multiple times despite all her self-defense training, she broke 10 years of being clean with Simpson’s pill to protect Jessica, and her abusive mom found a way to slither back into her life by hanging information about Jessica over her head. That stability and any sense of safety and control she’d been able to develop was gone, all of her resistance was lowered to critical levels, and it opened her up to this relapse, which then ate away at the most positive parts of her personality and amplified the worst ones x1000. I get that.

One quick look through this blog will show that I was not one of those fans that ever thought Trish was some pure precious cinnamon role and moral paragon. I knew that under her put-together facade, she was a walking disaster that was as traumatized and damaged and desperate and conflicted as Jessica. And I did want the show to explore that damage and how trauma presents itself in many different ways. I wanted it to be clear to viewers Trish is actually not okay and is still struggling with her past. I wanted her issues with addiction to be examined. I wanted then to move towards Hellcat. I even wanted her and Malcolm to interact more and develop their own dynamic. So I should be happy, right? They technically did what I wanted. Shit, like 90% of the songs on my Trish playlist just became significantly more relevant. But no, I’m not really feeling happy about it, because I got the wishing on a monkey’s paw version.

A quick personal note: Trish means a lot to me, and her relationship with Jessica means a lot to me, and that’s something I can’t really put into words. My initial reaction to the season was just… an overwhelming sadness. And I don’t feel as bad now, but I keep bouncing between “sure, it does make sense” to “this is so awful, oh god, why would they do this???” Sometimes I feel this inspiration to write thousands of words of meta, but then it just as easily turns and suddenly I can’t stand thinking about it because it makes me nauseous. For the last year, I’ve thought about Trish every day in at least some capacity. I thought about her as I went to bed, when I drove, when I went for walks, when I had any short moment of time to myself. I’m not here to talk about whether using fictional characters like that is a particularly healthy coping mechanism, because that’s not the point right now. The point is, it was a pleasant distraction for me that helped me cope with other life things, but now it’s something that causes me pain and anxiety, and I’m stuck feeling like I have to detach from the thing that was helping me detach if I ever want to feel better.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is about all of this that’s making me feel that way. Why do I feel like someone literally died? I don’t think my problem is with the characterization in and of itself because I knew those things were sitting under the surface, and it’s not with telling this story of trauma and addiction and putting the full ugly reality of it on display. It definitely isn’t a problem with the acting: Rachael Taylor was amazing and knocked it out of the park. So what’s the problem? Why isn’t this sitting okay with me? I’m generally pretty rational, but I think most of my issues here are very perception and emotion based rather than anything obviously intellectual, and it’s hard to verbalize. I’ll try my best. And I don’t know, maybe my feelings will change if I watch again, but right now, the idea of that still hurts too much.

So. The writers deconstructed Trish, which is fascinating in theory, but I just feel like they did it without… kindness? It felt like pure merciless brutality. Even mean-spirited sometimes. They debased every part of her life and her accomplishments, cheapened them, and put her in publicly humiliating situations at every opportunity. They left her without a shred of dignity, without her heart, without one positive relationship. And, no, addiction isn’t at all kind, it is cruel and demeaning and heartless, but I didn’t feel a sense of compassion from the writers themselves in how they handled her and her trauma and mental illness. That so many viewers are reacting so negatively to Trish doesn’t strike me as purely a failure to understand the impact of addiction, but that there was a failure on the writers’ part to show it in an empathetic, understanding way. Even I, someone that loves Trish so much and spends a lot of time in her head, feel like I have to do extra legwork.

It felt as though they were prioritizing and emphasizing her motivations in a way that was intended to put her in the absolute worst light possible. Her most selfish motivations (”unholy” ambition, jealousy, wanting to be the special one) were on full display and consistently pointed out by other characters, but they often underplayed her more sympathetic, obviously trauma based motivations or the motivations that were sincerely about helping other people. She talked the talked about doing good, but there was no point where it was shown in action. It was almost always a manipulative ploy to help herself or get her fix. I know Trish does sincerely care about people, wants to make sure they never have to feel as small and helpless and voiceless as she’s been made to feel, and I think probably the writers do think of that as one of her many conflicting motivations, but they didn’t show it, they only told it and then contradicted it. It also definitely didn’t help that it felt like they were villainizing ambition, and as a result, villainizing her for daring to have it. I don’t think I need to explain why the implication that women having ambition will lead them down a road of power-hungry obsession and selfish callousness is… not great.

And I feel like they just didn’t carry over what should have been obvious threads that would’ve helped make more sense of this downward spiral. What I said above about how her behavior here connects to the events of s1? That’s all headcanoning from me. The show didn’t actually draw those lines. It wasn’t clear that she was still reacting to having her vulnerability shoved so brutality back in her face by Simpson and Kilgrave. That she’d opened herself up to relapse after taking Simpson’s pill. That Kilgrave fractured her relationship with Jessica and the cracks still hadn’t been patched up. Or even that letting her mom near her again was reviving old traumas and pressures and expectations and unhealthy coping mechanisms. I think the whole thing moved too quickly, and they decided to give us the Darkest Timeline Trish without fully adding up the elements and explaining when and how we crossed the veil and dipped into that timeline. When I was plotting out an AU where she never met Jessica, s2 Trish is actually what I pictured. But that’s kind of the key point: it was a Trish that never had anyone’s love and support. That wasn’t true here. And I think at least pulling threads from s1 would’ve added more depth to it, instead of making it seem like she was only being driven by some desperation for MORE MORE MORE.

And I don’t know, maybe it’s all just in my head, but I perceived a kind of near softening of Dorothy (not completely, obviously) that almost felt designed to pull even more sympathy away from Trish. It just felt like they were pulling back on her. There were a few points where it seemed they were trying to veer her closer to lovable asshole territory and trying to gloss over things we know she did from s1. I think viewers do need reminders sometimes, especially if you’ve been off the air for over two years, and it doesn’t help to have things completely vital to a character’s identity and formation mentioned offhandedly in a quick conversation. That Dorothy literally pimped her daughter out was sort of brushed over and the repercussions of her role in it weren’t examined. Even their body language shifted compared to the defensiveness of s1. Trish just let Dorothy into her personal space, let her casually touch her, like it didn’t mean anything, like there wasn’t years of physical abuse. And then to put Dorothy in a position to be the voice of reason was just… wow. To leave viewers with the ability to say, “damn, Trish is a selfish prick, and Dorothy is just telling it like it is,” it felt gross.

By the end, the execution of all this felt more like a grueling punishment of the character than a complex, human story told with careful thoughtfulness and compassion. It felt villainizing. It felt like darkness for the sake of darkness. And listen, I love angst. I love complicated, difficult characters sometimes doing the wrong things. I love characters failing and falling and learning and building themselves back up. But I’m just so tired of hopelessly grimdark stories. I’m tired of shows destroying their light in a quest to compete for the title of sickest, saddest world.

And yes, this show was already harsh in its first season, and it didn’t back away from cruel reality, but it wasn’t hopeless. It had its heart. And that beating, bleeding heart was the relationship between Jessica and Trish. But they chose to rip that heart out. And that’s the thing that bothers me the most. They took away the most positive thing in these women’s lives, and the most positive thing in the show and something the fandom loved, and for what purpose exactly? In s1, they gave us these broken, codependent women that could be messy and wrong, that could cause each other pain, but still shared a love that was powerful and supportive and uplifting. That’s an infinitely more valuable and meaningful thing to put on the screen than another common, cliched story about petty jealousy tearing women apart.

And I’m aware it wasn’t as simple as a petty need to be the special-est person in the room driving Trish, that this envy stems from her knowing if she’d had Jessica’s power she’d have been able to protect herself from the things that still leave her feeling empty and small, how it continues to feed into her feelings of worthlessness and lack of control, that she’s been conditioned to believe nothing is good enough and she needs to be better and more than herself and have more than what she has if anyone is ever going to love her, but I also spend a lot of time in Trish’s head, thinking about her motivations and traumas. I doubt most viewers are going to take the time to dig deeper. And I don’t know, I can’t entirely blame the fandom for failing to afford Trish the same sympathy and understanding they’re willing to offer Jessica and her fuck ups when it feels like the show itself didn’t seem to want to give it to Trish or didn’t try to paint the fullest picture of where she was coming from. So the takeaway for a lot of people is going to be that the writers took this special, well-loved relationship and ripped it apart by making one of them a jealous, resentful, toxic creep. I can’t blame anyone for feeling upset or betrayed.

I can tell myself there was a point to all of this. I can tell myself they’ll pull Trish back from the edge, that she slipped, lost the plot, but that recovery is on the way, and she will make an honest effort to get better and be better and work to become her best self, which is the thing that makes a true hero. I can tell myself they’ll repair her relationship with Jessica, and the two of them will come out of this with a stronger, more healthy dynamic because they’ll finally openly address the ugly things that were festering. I can tell myself that, but I can’t trust it.

I trusted the writers once already. I trusted them to treat Trish with compassion and kindness, even as they broke her down and took her to dark places. I trusted them to show a difficult, complicated but still ultimately affirming and unconditional love between her and Jessica. But they broke my trust. How can I have faith about what they’ll do next season? How can I believe they’ll lift Trish back up and mend things with Jessica instead of taking her down a path of outright villainy? Honestly, making her a villain seems about as likely as anything else at this point. So I can’t trust them, and because this show doesn’t follow a typical schedule, I also won’t even get to know what direction they’ll take for at least another two years. And it’s just not a good feeling to have to sit with. It sucks when you invest so much of yourself into something, and then the things that meant the most to you about it get pulled out from under you, and you can’t even trust that it’ll actually get better.

#trish walker #jessica jones #jj s2 spoilers #so yeah that's where i'm at right now #it's subject to change maybe #but i'm still kind of just not wanting to think about any of it because it makes me sad #eta because i've been asked a few times: feel free to reblog

53 notes · View notes

bakurapika · 7 years

Text

haha okay i love jd, i really do, yes i’m one of Those People

BUT i really want to show the masterpiece of manipulative behavior that is the reprise of “meant to be yours” (which veronica thankfully outsmarts)

(i talk about this a lot but i think about this a lot so???)

this is gonna be LINE BY LINE yall

oh and side note this is so fun for voice/acting practice because of the bajillion emotions and crescendos in this frickin genius song

All is forgiven, baby!

JD’s introducing himself as the gracious, forgiving party that was wronged in their previous encounter (which, if you haven’t watched through the whole musical, was him intimating the murder of Heather Duke... and his extremely reckless use of a firearm after promising that he was a changed man). This is putting Veronica in an awkward position of guilt from the get-go.

Come on, get dressed. You're my date to the pep rally tonight!

More of JD assuming that he’ll get his way from Veronica without her having a say in the matter.

You chucked me out like I was trash

Placing all the guilt from their encounter on Veronica’s cruelty and senselessness. Avoiding responsibility for anything he’s done thus far. Painting Veronica in a heartless light that would normally inspire pity and apology.

For that you should be dead—

More evidence of JD’s recklessly erratic behavior and roller coaster of emotional extremes. Though I definitely think JD has a lot of mental illness issues on his plate, I (as an unprofessional run of the mill armchair diagnoser) don’t think this is a symptom of any of them. It’s another sign of abuse--that JD’s mood varies so wildly that Veronica would have to walk around eggshells on him. That this idea popped in his head is enough of a red flag; that he tells Veronica this while trying to make up is nothing less than an implicit death threat.

For context, remember that JD’s already set plans in motion that would make it very, very easy to fake Veronica’s suicide at his own hands. This wasn’t just a passing idea. This is a noose he’s already wrapped around her neck.

But! But! But! Then it hit me like a flash What if high school went away instead?

This line is definitely more of a mental-illness issue (or at least unhealthy thinking) than the previous ones. JD’s getting paranoid now in his search for somebody to blame besides himself or Veronica for their breakup.

Those assholes are the key!

JD’s extending an olive branch here, at least in his own mind. He’s not forgiving Veronica for their fight, though; he’s saying that it’s not her fault, since she’s being controlled by a malicious third party. Not only is this insulting--it’s insinuating that her judgment and decision-making is impaired (and that JD is the one to make her decisions for her in the meantime).

Keep in mind that he’s not just talking about the jocks and Heathers, though. He’s talking about every single other student--including Martha and Heather McNamara, whose wills to live Veronica’s been fighting tooth and nail to save. JD may not have meant this line to be a threat against Veronica, but it functions to further drown out her opinion and isolate her from anyone besides himself.

They’re keeping you away from me!

Now JD’s making up barriers. He and Veronica didn’t “break up” by her choice anymore--there’s just an obstruction in their relationship that needs to be overcome by force. This is simplifying the issue even further than before.

They made you blind, messed up your mind

Completely robbing Veronica of any power here. Even if Veronica tried to talk down JD at this point, he could discount anything she said as being the product of her brainwashing by the other students.

But I can set you free!

Classic manipulation--introducing a problem (whether or not it objectively exists) and putting forward the desired action as the only solution. Black and white thinking, false dilemma, whatever you want to call it--JD’s crafting a situation You left me and I fell apart

Having given Veronica an “out,” a way to escape the conflict between the two of them, JD goes back to playing the pity game. Veronica supposedly was the one who caused JD’s emotional breakdown. JD’s not letting himself be blamed at all here, and he’s definitely nowhere near an apology.

I punched the wall and cried—Bam! Bam! Bam!

This is, again, an implicit threat. If Veronica claimed to feel threatened, JD could honestly say that he said no such thing, she’s being emotional, etc. But this introduces a very immediate, physically violent threat. JD’s “lost control” and started hitting things before, and he seems like he’s in the mood to do it again.

Then I found you changed my heart and set loose all that truthful shit inside!

Further defending his actions as the right thing to do, while painting Veronica as the guilty party. This isn’t much better reasoning than the stereotypical “you made me abuse you” line.

And so I built a bomb Tonight our school is Vietnam! Let’s guarantee they’ll never see their senior prom! Ramping up the physical threat from mere punching to action, large-scale murder. JD is still seeing himself as the rational person here, and he expects Veronica to agree with him.

I was meant to be yours! We were meant to be one!

The soft singing and sudden waltz tempo of these lines is important, I think. JD’s using a stick-and-carrot for Veronica. He’s just finished introduced the sticks--possible physical abuse or murder of Veronica, Veronica being guilty for JD’s mental breakdown, the ending of their relationship--and now he’s teasing her with the carrot. Their relationship used to be so good, and it could be again. Not only that, it’s meant to be. This isn’t a choice for Veronica anymore--it’s her fate, and she has no say in the end result.

Don’t give up on me now!

JD’s reminding Veronica of the emotional investment she’s put in this relationship. Not only does the breakup represent her failure, now; it represents her giving up on someone she cares about.

Finish what we’ve begun!

And Veronica’s not an accidental accomplice to JD’s murders, in his mind. This was something they started together.

Sadly Veronica is, at least, affected by this reasoning, as we hear in the Dead Girl Walking reprise. She considers herself as guilty as JD in Heather, Ram, and Kurt’s murders, and she does believe that it’s her destiny to end this chain of events by JD’s side.

I was meant to be yours!

So when the high school gym goes BOOM with everyone inside—Pew! Pew! Pew!

In the rubble of their tomb

We’ll plant this note explaining why they died!

OK I’m not even gonna analyze this one for manipulation, because this is so batshit ahahahah. Heathers is full of dark comedy and I consider this one of the examples of gallows humor.

Like the cops are just gonna be like “welp, this explosion destroyed countless human bodies................... but hey look a stickie note survived”

(Westerburg cops might, but you’d think the FBI or something would get involved. Like.......................JD didn’t even laminate the note. wtf mate, what are you expecting to happen) We’ll watch the smoke pour out the doors Bring marshmallows We’ll make s’mores! We can smile and cuddle while the fire roars! Painting a vivid picture of their relationship being “all better,” while JD still seems to be under the mistaken impression that Veronica will stop caring about her dead classmates immediately afterward. I was meant to be yours! We were meant to be one! I can’t take it alone! Finish what we’ve begun!

You were meant to be mine! I am all that you need!

Reinforcing the isolation of the victim. If Veronica actually went along with this--god forbid she had any other close personal relationships. JD would consider that absolute betrayal.

(His motives for this are worth thinking about, though not here--he has very polarized views of the people in his life. He worships Veronica, and at this point he expects that attitude to be reciprocated)

You carved open my heart! Don’t just leave me to bleed!

Veronica’s the cruel, bloodthirsty person in this relationship if she refuses to answer him. JD’s heaping the guilt on her. Veronica, open the—open the door, please Veronica, open the door

Now he’s trying a foot-in-the-door (ha!) approach. Opening a door is a very tiny request, but if she agrees to it out of pity, she’ll feel more obligated to agree to his much bigger demands.

The frantic repetition is making this tiny request that much harder to ignore.

Veronica, can we not fight anymore, please Can we not fight anymore

JD’s trivializing the issue, turning it into a run-of-the-mill couples spat that can be fixed with a single conversation. He’s trying to get Veronica to question her judgment.

After all, it would be so much easier at this point for her to go along with them. And then they could be happy again together.

(in the off-broadway recording JD’s voice breaks so beautifully here. I consider it a nod to the audience that JD’s not just making this up for the sake of manipulating Veronica, even if that is his desired end result--he’s really, genuinely confused at why this is such a big deal to her, and why they can’t just be happy together again [on his awful terms].)

Veronica, sure, you’re scared I’ve been there. I can set you free!

Trying to wrap up this one-sided argument by once again setting up himself and Veronica as allies in the fight against the world. He’s relating to his victim, making the issue in their relationship seem temporary and dependent on her own flawed state of mind.

This also echoes the short talk Veronica got from her mother in the previous song. While her mom was genuinely caring and trying to relate, JD is saying the same thing for much more sinister purposes. Veronica didn’t like it the first time nor the second.

Veronica, don’t make me come in there!

Again--the “you made me do it” abusive line of reasoning, with heavily implied threats and an act of physical violence.

I’m gonna count to three!

Putting a time limit on something is a great way to convince people to do it. (See: limited-time flash sales.) JD’s demanding an immediate answer from Veronica, or else.

He’s also still setting himself up as a disciplinary adult figure--making decisions for her, scolding her, relating to her, helping her, and even trying to get her to open her bedroom door by the count of three, like she’s a five-year-old.

One! Two! Fuck it!

And I think it’s really important to note these last couple of lines in JD’s one-sided argument. He set up a time limit, but still barged in ahead of time. This wasn’t in the interest of getting inside as fast as possible, of course. This was done specifically to take Veronica off guard and find her in an even more vulnerable position while still sounding like the voice of reason. After all, he did warn her that he was coming in, and she refused to answer him, so of course he came in, who cares that he got bored of counting.

He’s making his mood unpredictable and dangerous whenever he doesn’t get his way.

aaaand haha holy fuck i’ve written almost 2000 words on this short song and i still think i skipped over bits on accident

i’d love to hear ur thoughts tho guys if anyone read this

#jd #heathers #jason dean #meant to be yours #character analysis

106 notes · View notes