I don’t think the Rat Grinders are irredeemable or whatever but I DO think a lot of people are putting the onus on Brennan specifically to redeem them or “write them a redemption arc”, like yes it is a show and there has to be character narratives especially for foils to your PCs, but ttrpgs are fundamentally a /collaborative/ storytelling medium, the thing about DnD is that the players have to invest in the NPCs, they have to give them the time and space to redeem themselves through interacting with them, the reason we see characters like Aelwyn and Ragh get a redemption arc & change and develop is because the Bad Kids went out of their way to talk to them (In Aelwyn’s case Adaine had to commit to redeeming her sister on multiple occaisions). Lets not forget there have been other teen villains, like Penelope, Dayne and Biz who the Bad Kids just straight up killed in combat, who didn’t get redeemed. Do I think it’s fully possible that the Rat Grinders can experience redemption/forgiveness and it would be narratively satisfying? Absolutely! But, imo, a lot of the narrative thrust behind wether a character gets redemption is in the hands of the players, and it would be a little bit unsatisfying if being freed from their rage crystals immediately gave them all full personality transplants (like removing all of Kipperlily’s anger and ambition for example)

So apparently there’s been a new twist on a trend I’ve been seeing for a while in like hardcore fundamentalist Christian/anti-LGBTQ+/gender critical groups and as funny as it is that they make hating queer people their whole personality, to the point of even pretending to be ex-gays or whatever, something about it is so bizarre from an outside perspective.

Honestly, it’s kinda sad to me how many of these people will make what are supposed to be the happiest moments of their lives about people they hate. Like in my last reblog, that couple was getting married, which is great for them! But rather than celebrating their marriage and their relationship and their love for each other, they decided to focus on their hatred of kinky furries? And imo there’s no version of events that makes this better. If they both were in on making this post, then I worry about their relationship because I speak from experience when I say ANY relationship founded on a mutual dislike of someone else is doomed to fail. If it was only one of them who came up with this idea and posted it without the other knowing, that’s also pretty bad, because how do you explain to your partner that the reason you can’t just be happy about your marriage is because you’re too busy being mad about kinky gay people online?

This is a trend with people announcing their pregnancies too, like they’ll go “yep! Just found out I’m pregnant! Something only REAL WOMEN can do, not something a trans woman can do!” And first of all trans women are real fucking women, so write that down. But also why couldn’t you just focus on your own happiness? Like, what are you gonna tell your child when they get old enough to use Facebook and they look through your page and see a memory pop up of that post? How are you gonna explain to them that you were so busy focusing on how much you hate a bunch of trans people you’ve never even met that you couldn’t even be happy they were coming into the world? And then there’s the parents who continue to make their entire child rearing experience about their hatred of trans people after their kid is born, like how those tradwife videos will show them making bread with their daughters and then randomly bring up how this is what Real Women do. Which is so bizarre. But also gods forbid your kid turns out to be trans themself, because now they’ve got an entire laundry list of posts you made detailing how much you hate trans people (IN THE CONTEXT OF RAISING THAT TRANS CHILD, NO LESS) that they can now use as a justification to cut you off!

It’s like that woman who talked about hating trans people on her deathbed. I don’t feel like I just “got owned” or whatever. I don’t know any trans women who feel that way either. I feel pity for a few minutes and then I go back to scrolling tumblr and drinking my tea. I forget all about it until someone brings it up, either as a passing joke or to show me an example, and then I laugh and maybe feel a little pity again, and then I go back to playing video games. Occasionally I’ll wish they had something in their lives that they loved and considered more important than their hatred, because I feel like everyone deserves to find happiness in the things they enjoy, but I never feel like I just got “absolutely destroyed” or whatever the poster’s goal was. I just feel pity for the people who are so obsessed with their hatred that they can’t focus on literally anything else, and then life goes on.

Idk I just truly hate this trend, not because I wish ill on the people doing it or think it’s cringe or whatever but because I think it’s more damaging to themselves than it is to anyone they’re directing their anger towards. Imagine being so miserable all the time because people exist that are different from you and it takes up so much space in your heart that you can’t even be happy about the good things in your own life without somehow making it a “gotcha” at random people you don’t know.

writing tag game

Thanks for the tag @adaliak!

how many works do you have on AO3?

27 fics

1 artwork

what’s your total A03 word count?

152291

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Five Times Peter Said "Sorry" to Tony Stark - ...and the one time he didn't have to.

Without Deeds - Peter survives a vicious kidnapping after having a huge argument with Tony. Now, more than ever, Tony knows he has to be there for him. They have a lot to work out, but Tony isn't walking away so easily this time. He vowed to never abandon the kid again, and he's going to keep that vow even if it kills him (or at the very least, makes him go grey). Sequel to "Five Times Peter Said Sorry to Tony Stark".

Never Letting Go - After two months of silence from the Parker family, May frantically calls Tony Stark with the news that Peter is missing. At first, he's angry. Then afraid. Then guilty. But he'll tear the whole world apart if that's what it takes to find the kid. ---The Butcher, from Tony's point of view. Companion piece to "Five Times Peter Said "Sorry" to Tony Stark"

Under His Wing - “Iowa? No way!” Peter protested. "I can’t go to Iowa!” Tony waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, “Sure you can. It’ll be great. Just like all those Lifetime movies where the city girl goes to the country, makes new friends, learns life lessons…" --Peter needs to take a break. Clint Barton has a farm. They may have more to offer each other than they realize.

Loved - When the Dursleys find out Harry is in love with a boy, he thinks he has nowhere to go. He couldn't be more wrong.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do! Though I'm not as consistent with it as I'd like. It always means so much to me that someone would take time out of their day to leave a comment on my writing, so I want to express my appreciation!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

My fics usually don't have sad endings, but I write a lot of h/c, so they can be a bit bittersweet. Probably Huzzah! where the Avengers visit a Ren Faire. It ends with them rushing to leave after Clint vomits on someone's lap, but they have a great time up until then!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Probably Just a Pinch (and It's Over). An Umbrella Academy fic, it ends with the canonical event of Diego deactivating his mom and running away, but with more feels.

Do you write crossovers?

My first fic...that I wrote 11 years ago...is a Pokemon/Maximum Ride crossover. It's very bad, I never finished it, and you won't find it on my ao3...but it's still out there...

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Of a sort. Some people really didn't like an MCU AU I was writing. I got a few bad comments, enough to really throw me, and the fic is currently on hiatus while I rewrite. Still actively rewriting it, but now I'm too scared to post until the whole thing is complete.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah...at least one of my fics ended up on one of those Russian websites I think? But idk, what can you do?

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! A Story About Love and Loss, one of my Doctor Who fics, was translated into French, and one of my HP fics, Looney Luna Lovegood's Boggart, was translated into Italian!

Have you ever co-written a fic?

Nope. Might be fun to do someday though. At one point, my sibling and I wanted to write something together, but it never happened.

What is your all time favorite ship?

I don't know if I really have one. I like some ships, but no singular one really stands out for me.

What is a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

Hmmm...I have a young orphan Clint Barton fic I've been working on on-and-off for years that I'd love to finish someday, but afraid I won't. It gives off 2012 Avengers fic vibes, it's very near and dear to my heart.

What are your writing strengths?

I can be pretty good with descriptive language when I slow down enough to actually write it. I've also been told I'm not bad at characterization, and I hope that's true.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Endings. I feel like I'm horrible at endings. Also, sometimes I get really strong concepts for a fic, but my justifications for how those concepts come about can sometimes be weak. The lead-in, if you will.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Never done it! But from a reading perspective, to me, it only makes sense if the character is bilingual in canon, and you shouldn't overdo it to the point where the reader is really, really lost without google translate.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

See above to my Pokemon/Maximum Ride crossover XD

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

It's really so hard, they're all my babies! But my default answer is probably "Five Times Peter Said "Sorry" to Tony Stark". That fic was so easy to write, and the warm response it got was unprecedented for me. I just remember being so elated every time I updated the stats page, and I'll still go back and reread it myself sometimes.

rambly inception thoughts bc i watched this movie for like the fifth time this week and i can’t let it go

i just saw a lil post about an umbrella academy/inception crossover and that au is not really relevant to this but it made me think. i got to wondering whether someone w superpowers would be able to use them in a dream, or if that would violate the suspension of disbelief/make-no-waves rules and call the projections down on u. the specific rules of this mechanism--and of forging, and limbo, and lots of other stuff--have a definitively movie-logic ambiguousness to them, but let’s say that using powers in a dream, even if you have them in real life, stretches belief a little too much and angers the projections. it would also explain why (from a watsonian perspective, at least) dreamsharers don’t just give themselves fantastic abilites to make things easier. (i kinda wanna go off on another tangent about what that implies about who you have fool, be it dreamer or mark or both, and the effect of varying levels of imagination, but few enough people are gonna read this whole thing as is :’))

but then (in this extremely niche and overly specific hypothetical situation, yes, i’m sorry) if powered ppl using real powers in a dream would be too unbelievable, it follows that dreamsharers would have to be at least slightly more boring versions of themselves in a dream, probably less skilled and just less weird. real life is consistently stranger and more unexpected than imagination

this is where this veers off into unrelated territory a lil bit bc then i started imagining the conversation that would happen if Ariadne started figuring this out or if Eames told her. without any effort at good or in-character dialogue, it might go something like this:

A <<so then the stablest/most forgiving dreams would be of the people with the most imagination? like children?>>

E <<probably, but who would go in the mind of a child?>>

A <<u literally make a career made a career out of violating people in a way so profound u’d have to be clinically paranoid to even worry about protecting against it, but u draw the line there? at children? why is it okay to do it to adults?>>

and so on until i started having some characterization hcs. bc i see Eames as the coldest/most ruthlessly pragmatic character in the movie (i’ve had conversations where ppl argue it’s Cobb, but he’s not ruthless. he is, in fact, sabotaging his own career w an overabundance of ruth. he’s just desperate and making some kind of myopic justifications. like that scene early on in the first level? i get the distinct sense that when he’s blowing up at Arthur he’s overcompensating to separate himself from the blame of a situation for which he’s at least 50% but arguably more responsible for. sorry tangent over) and i don’t think he’d worry abt this too much.

he knows that he lives his life in a bit of a moral gray area and unless he wants to make sm srs changes to his lifestyle there’s not a lot of point stressing. he’s not like totally relativistic, bc relativism isn’t that useful and he’s pretty utilitarian (i think these words also have, like, official philosophical definitions but idk anything abt that n i’m not using em that way), but he’s aware that a moral code is a tricky thing, even for ppl who are not international career criminals. rules like “no kids as marks” are easy to follow, and make simple, instinctive sense. i think he’d make a lot of moral decisions js on gut feeling.

in the hypothetical convo above where he tells Ariadne as much, mbe he adds:

<<if u want to talk abt it w someone who’s actually thought abt this, i’m sure Arthur has, but i don’t think it’ll make u feel better>>

bc Arthur is mbe a bit too good at compartmentalizing and justifications (not like Cobb, tho. Arthur is loyal to a fault and dedicated to looking after other ppl in a way he seems generally disinterested in doing for himself), seeing as he’s apparently the kind of person who can cheerfully ID someone’s murderer to their face and then just casually switch topics after like 5 words of explanation.

he’s characterized as v focused on planning/details and thoroughness/coherency, so it tracks that he’d want to articulate/organize his thoughts on Why I Do What I Do, but the subjectivity of his justifications would be especially apparent to Ariadne after this convo w Eames. and like, “convince ur friend to go to therapy” and “follow ur friend around the globe enabling his increasingly aimless and self-destructive mission to break into ppl’s heads for money” are on opposite ends of a spectrum i don’t want to know anything about. js bc this dude gets prissy abt Eames js Feeling Things Out and is convinced he’s Mr. Logic doesn’t mean his logic isn’t absolutely fckn buck-wild.

so Ariadne’s reaction to all this is what? it’s highly unlikely anything could make her give up dreamshare, so. are there legit alternatives to the criminal side of things? in the movie it’s not rly clear. when Dom goes to Miles and says that becoming a fugitive took away his legitimate options for his skills, it seems like that would imply there are, in fact, legitimate options. but then why was Miles only training/able to suggest a normal ass architect and not a dreamshare Architect?

anyway, the point is if legit dreamshare work exists, Ari could hand the work of deciding on ethics and regulations off to a boss or legislation. whether or not she’d choose to do that i think is a matter of personal hc and the movie could support it either way. if on the other hand, tho, only illegal uses for dreamshare exist, she has to find her own moral guidelines in criminal work (i like the hc that Arthur helps her be more selective than a newbie would typically be allowed to be. helps her vet jobs and keep from getting in over her head/beholden to someone. it just seems like something he would do. and mbe his reputation needs a little repair after however long he ran w an increasingly unstable and unreliable Dom Cobb, but if ppl like Eames are still calling him the best pointman he must have enough clout to help Ari get some good jobs). for myself, i think even if there are legit jobs Ari would choose to stay on the illegal side of things anyway, at least at first. she’s addicted to the limitation-free aspect of it, and, in the proud tradition of geniuses and prodigies everywhere, she’s demonstrably bad at taking censure/advice. she has to make her own mistakes. not to mention, her own morals might be a lil wobbly anyway, from how easily and entitledly she invaded Dom’s privacy. like, it turned out to be for the best, but it was still kinda fcked up

anyway surprise i wasn’t working towards any sort of point but i can’t stop thinking abt this movie and my family’s sick of hearing about it. thanks for reading. vote

Realm of the Elderlings Ask Meme Thing

Created by @hermitknut and brought back by @elderling-magic

Thanks @blackandwhitemotley for tagging me :) this is gonna be unnecessarily long because I’m a messy bitch with too many feelings and not enough brain cells

Favourite RotE Book: God it’s impossible to choose properly so let’s just go with the one that always gives me flashbacks when I see it on my bookshelf: Golden Fool

Why: I was already deeply obsessed at this point and had laughed, cried and panicked countless times throughout the series BUT Golden Fool stands out because of the Fitz/Fool confrontation which all but gave me a panic attack. Sure, I’ve been overly invested in book characters my whole life but the fact I was like physically fuckin sweating just because these guys were having a verbal fight, which had nothing to do with the actual plot, is fuckin wild my dude. Also despite my distress I was thrilled in a way because I never expected Robin to address the homoerotic tension in the actual text - and I was even more impressed that she makes the Fool the winner in this fight. You feel for him (ouch!!!!!!!!) but he gets the last word and the whole time you’re on his side and wishing Fitz would just keep his goddamn mouth shut (unless he’s gonna use it to kiss the Fool). She makes you empathise with the Fool without compromising his dignity, without making him a pathetic pining gay stereotype. He is hurt, he is human, but Fitz is the fool in this exchange (forgive the unintentional pun). It’s crazy how this one scene defines this whole huge book for me but it overwhelmingly does. Man it fucked me up.

Top Three Favourite Characters: I’m excluding Fitz, the Fool and Nighteyes cos that’s just a given honestly and there are too many incredible characters to choose from. Also I’m going to choose three characters I think are exceptional on a technical level since that’s the easiest way for me to pick a few out.

1. Burrich - Forever fascinating to me because I disagree with him probably more often than not AND YET I love him so much. It’s seriously like I have the same relationship with him that Fitz does - and/or the same relationship many of us have with father figures. That weird thing where you can fundamentally disagree on some pretty important stuff, and he makes a lot of mistakes and probably irrevocably fucked you up in a lot of ways but you can’t help but love him because you know he’s not doing anything from a place of malice or pettiness or selfishness. He simply knows what he believes and is righteous to a fault. He’s always doing his best - whatever that looks like to him. There are so many things he says or does that make me amazed that I don’t hate him. I think in another series he is the kind of character I would hate. The fact that Robin makes me love him - and conflicted about that love - is a marvel.

2. Malta - I won’t harp on about this too much because we all know the deal. Malta’s early POVs were a tween nightmare. I had to skim them because they were so viscerally irritating. I guess it’s a huge testament to the writing that it really did feel like you were stuck in a tween girl’s head; the problem is that is the worst hell imaginable. It’s an even greater testament to the writing that, through some of the most masterful character development I have ever witnessed, you actually end up loving this girl.

3. Kennit - He’s such a monster that I hate actually saying he’s one of my favourite characters but it’s true. Especially from a writing perspective; it’s fucking witchcraft how Robin has you judging everyone around Kennit for falling for his charms even while you are in some way charmed by him. He’s intelligent, charismatic, enigmatic. You know he’s not a good person yet you enjoy spending time with him, you’re kind of rooting for him just because he’s interesting and you want to see what he’s going to do next. You even know - the narration straight up tells you - that most of his successes are down to pure dumb luck yet we still kind of buy into this persona of his. Absolutely brilliant writing. Not to mention his backstory, which is so tragic and compelling, and manages to explain his actions without excusing them. Without a doubt one of my top five favourite villains of all time.

Top Three Least Favourite Characters: Okay so again going for the writing angle; characters I just felt weren’t handled all that well on a technical level. Keep in mind that this is suuuuuper subjective. Also I can only think of two.

1. Molly - I’ve seen a lot of people assume that people who dislike her feel that way because she “gets in the way” of Fitz/Fool but that’s not true for me. I’ll try and keep this shortish because I have way too many feelings about this topic lol. Having read the whole series I wouldn’t change anything, but for a long time I really felt like the story would have been better if she wasn’t in it, or especially if she had not come back after Assassin’s Quest. Maybe that’s harsh, but I honestly just generally dislike the whole “first love, last love” trope (and in my personal experience have found it v toxic). I never found her character particularly engaging, but by the end of Farseer I had made my peace with her role in Fitz’s story; the way I saw it, she represented the life Fitz wanted but could never have. Of course you could argue then that it makes sense for Fitz to get her back once he is allowed to have a window of normal life - and that would be true EXCEPT the whole reason I saw her as a symbol and not a real love interest was because their relationship was TERRIBLE. It was seriously toxic and literally based on lies. I really felt what would have been healthy for Fitz at the end of Tawny Man would have been to find peace in realising that Molly was his past, not his future, and that what they’d had was teenage lust and not the stuff of soulmates. I don’t like the implication that Fitz was right to idealise this tumultuous, dishonest, immature relationship he had as a teenager all these years. Honestly this is why I was FURIOUS when I finished Fool’s Fate lol, even though I knew this wasn’t the ultimate ending. Now that I know where Robin went with this and that Fitz wasn’t really fulfilled in his life with Molly I don’t mind it as much but I still don’t love it. There was never enough of an honest, genuine, selfless connection established between the two of them for it to feel like anything other than an unhealthy fixation that Fitz projected all his unattainable fantasies onto. He never seemed to see Molly as a fully realised person which made it hard for me to do so. Also seriously, if I had been pining after my high school fling for the last ten years everyone would agree that the best thing for me would be to move on, not get back together with them. I’m not saying Fitz didn’t deserve his little bracket of peaceful years, but it just didn’t have to be with Molly. Sometimes not getting what you thought you wanted is the happy ending - I guess it’s just really jarring in a series that’s generally so subversive to get a standard fantasy trope like this. I really truly was shocked when Fitz got his feelings back from the stone dragon and his realisation was not “Molly is kind of just a girl I used to know a long time ago and our paths have long since diverged” but “yes no actually that girl I haven’t talked to in over a decade is my soulmate” like, wig in the worst way. ALSO SHE WAS FUCKING HIS DAD ALL THAT TIME. SHE BORE HIS DAD CHILDREN. HIS DAD HAD TO DIE SO THEY COULD BE TOGETHER. BRUH. Seriously it did feel like Burrich was sacrificed solely so these two little shits could get back together, and again, that was so infuriating and so not like these books. This and Burrich not being canonically in love w Chivalry are the only two points I actually get riled up about from a writing/critical perspective lol, every other flaw and quirk in this series I will absolutely pardon but for some reason these just get to me dude.

2. Starling - Promise this one is simpler lol. I always found Starling quite irritating “as a person” but didn’t mind her as a character. What I didn’t love was the way her lifestyle (promiscuity, independence, nomadic etc.) was kind of justified when it didn’t need to be, with the typical explanation that she’s only like this because she can’t have kids. It just felt really unnecessary, and it was even worse when she did get pregnant and basically just became a completely different person. But I’m generally touchy when it comes to female characters and fertility/pregnancy storylines as I just feel like they’re rarely done well. And I just really don’t like it when infertility is implied as a justification for character traits (usually traditionally male traits) that don’t need justifying.

Favourite Ship (of the floating kind): Paragon of course, we love a problematic fave.

Top Three Favourite Ships (of the people kind): Fitz/Fool, Sedric/Carson, Althea/Brashen (the only heteros whomst deserve rights)

Would you rather be Witted or Skilled: Honestly wouldn’t want either but if I had to choose I guess the Wit? I’d much rather be inside an animal’s head than another human’s no thanks bb

If you were Witted, what animal would you bond with?: If I’m still living in my current situation in this hypothetical then I guess a house cat. If I really get to go wild then I am absolutely bonding with a big cat, like a tiger or a panther IMAGINE THE SNUGGLES.

Would you rather live in the Outislands, the Mountain Kingdom, the Six Duchies, Bingtown, the Rain Wilds, Kelsingra, Jamaillia, the Pirate Isles, or Fool’s Homeland?: Dude I am so bad at visualising locations so idk lol, I guess queer utopia Kelsingra although obviously it has its drawbacks.

How were you introduced to the books? My mum had been telling me for years that if I liked A Song of Ice and Fire I would like Realm of the Elderlings. I was putting it off because there are so many books and I also knew how much she loved them so I was worried I wouldn’t like them and she’d be let down. But I eventually got so close to rereading ASOIAF (which I swore I wouldn’t do til Winds of Winter is released) that I decided to finally give RotE a go in its stead.

Share a quote you love: I don’t have a book on me rn but that part in Fool’s Errand when Fitz is talking about how the Fool has wandered into the place he’s been living for years and immediately, effortlessly made it a home is TENDERNESS BEYOND COMPARE ARE YOU KIDDING.

Tagging: if you see this and haven’t done it yet, consider yourself tagged!

Take the thing, copy and paste it into your own post, tag it “elderlings” and then tag as many people as you can that you know in the fandom.

this started off as navelgazing about a line from a book, then turned into an anxious rant about current events

“Inborn in nearly every artist is a tendency to accept injustice if it creates beauty” (Death in Venice, 21). well, idk about inborn, bc i had to go out of my way to shed the opposite tendency, but i do think it’s true that this mentality is necessary for… art and also other kinds of thought, anything where you need unfettered curiosity. but the painting of it as a vice interests me lately, because i’m starting to think i may have gone too far in this direction? the quoted line speaks to an assumption that indignation is a thing you should practice whenever relevant so you don’t lose it. that if something strikes you as unfair, you should always prioritize that impression over everything else you might notice about the situation that provokes that response. in this scene, that even though it’s not clear how it would help anyone for aschenbach to disapprove of this family’s treatment of the three daughters, it’s still a vice for him to brush it aside because he likes watching the son whose personality he thinks results from this favoritism.

i think we assume this because we fear that failing to deplore an instance of injustice when we see it makes us complicit? which, in and of itself, is clearly not true; that’s just thoughtcrime. like: unless you maintain that it’s his responsibility to tell the parents off, or to do something nice for the girls to compensate,* there’s no reason to view aschenbach’s feeling of “yeah well that sucks but it’s interesting to watch” as any worse than thinking “those terrible parents! how dare they deprive three out of four of their kids in this way”? bc there’s no consequential difference.

but. i think… maybe there is something to be said for cultivating this habit? because, at least for me, this kinda has led to a sort of complacency, a feeling that it’s not my place to judge people (or that there’s nothing i can do to fix injustice when i see it, but mostly the first thing: i tend to assume i don’t know enough about other people’s situations to judge, much less to try to correct or advise people). and that’s true??? like, in part i think this mental habit must have grown out of the axiom not to give medical advice to chronically ill people. i… have a tendency to internalize advice across the board, rather than situationally. i.e., to take this as meaning, “people know more about their own problems than you do,” and also, as meaning, “they’re already doing their best; nobody fails on purpose.” and generalizing that to situations where the “failure” is one of cruelty rather than of just not being as healthy/happy as it seems to you people should be. like: i have rooted out just-world hypothesis so thoroughly, i have so much contempt for that “obviously it’s possible to be better” mentality, that i apply it even when what i see looks to me like. someone being mean to their children. and to a certain extent this seems right to me??? like, parents fearing everyone around them thinks they’re evil because their kid is crying, when really all they deprived this poor child of is a piece of candy she found on the floor, is a real thing, and, i honestly cannot think of a time when i’ve seen a parent say or do something harsh to their child where something like this couldn’t easily have been the explanation. plus, the possibility they might take it out on their children still exists!

but i think maybe the specifics here are confusing the question? either that or the question is so abstract/fake that it’s not one i need to answer. so here: the root of my anxiety is this: i sometimes worry there’s something wrong with me because i’m not obsessed with the BLM protests going on, or at least, not in the way so many people imply i should be. it’s not that i lack empathy for the victims?—i do tear up when i think too hard about george floyd, or that man with the food cart who used to serve the cops for free. it’s just… that this sense of injustice doesn’t lead to any conviction. i don’t feel the righteousness of the protests; i’m detached enough to wonder intellectually about their effectiveness. although?? i guess that’s not wholly true either, because when i first heard about them my very first thought was “OH GOD NO NOT THIS AGAIN! YOU’RE ALL GONNA GET KILLED!”—a combination of fear at what might (…would, from today’s perspective) happen to the people involved, and dismay at the knowledge i was going to have to perform supportiveness about it.

for the record: i do think police brutality is evil, and that the police are corrupt and overpowered and groomed to be racist; also, from what i’ve heard, the protests have helped create a lot of policy changes, so from that standpoint i guess i support them. or, at least, congratulate them on a job well done. but: i think holding protests during a pandemic is fucking insane, especially since the thing protestors demand a stop to is unnecessary death. people keep telling me this is a crucial moment for the black community, and i think that at this point that’s true, but, afaik there’s no good strategic reason we can point to for why it had to be now, and i don’t like… well ok, let me start again. i wouldn’t mind having to say “yeah, well, straw that broke the camel’s back,” if i didn’t feel like that excuse precluded all criticism of the protests’ timing.** in my own life, when i reflect on times in my life when i’ve done things whose consequences i regret, i often have to conclude that under the circumstances i can’t have expected anything better from myself. but i still get to say i shouldn’t have done that. maybe i’m being greedy with my cake here, i just. ugh. it just pisses me off, the hypocrisy about covid, because the whole point of lockdowns and social distancing &c. was that no one person’s or group’s interests outweigh the risks to the human race at large. but now it’s apparently more important for even the unaffected members of said human race to stand in solidarity with the minorities who are affected by this latest crisis--as in, literally stand there, in public, right next to them, even if that means that two weeks later they come down with the plague. like?? you can’t even say “but this is a matter of life and death”! because covid is an even wider-reaching matter of life and death!!!!

also, the most common justification i hear is that the number of horrible things we’ve seen the police inflict on protestors proves we need to keep protesting. and politically speaking that does seem to be working? but IT’S STILL KIND OF FUCKING GHOULISH to hear that we as a nation have a responsibility to give the cops more opportunities to kill innocent people. like. i can intellectually say “yes, you’re right, i think it’s working,” but i can’t seem to feel that as a duty or a righteous cause.

…what was my point again? oh right: that i worry this makes me a Bad Person, or at least that everyone around me would think i was a Bad Person if i told them how i felt. and that i specifically worry my emotions are wrong, because i should be having… the kind of patriotism proust talks about (though for BLM and the left &c. rather than for america itself, obviously), but instead i’m like “aaagh ok fine if you have to but GOD I WISH THIS WOULD STOP.” and apparently, wanting it to stop means siding with the oppressors. and i guess… god, do you know what it is? honestly, i’m so short-sighted that a return to the status quo does sound better to me than this chaos. i don’t disbelieve people who assert that only a bitter fight like this can force change? intellectually i think maybe that’s true. but emotionally, i hate it, and on an animal level i don’t really believe it. the animal in me believes only that positive change is slow and unsatisfying, regardless of how you accomplish it.

*both of which seem to me Too Risky because option a might end with their harassing the girls over it (e.g., “this stranger over here thinks you’re being mistreated. if he only knew you like i do…!”), while option b, coming from an older, solitary man, might strike both the girls and their parents as a creepy, lecherous thing, in which case the girls might view it as insulting or even traumatizing rather than as a favor to them.

**especially the timing of protests like the one in my own town last weekend. they marched to the city police station--even though the one widely-known violent incident in our town in the last decade was perpetrated by the university police department--on, afaict, general ACAB principle. my friend who attended says the anger felt real, not just like a performance, but they weren’t agitating for any concrete changes here, you know?? so idg why it was worth infecting people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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