To be anything was enough. To be anyone was enough. 

the growing-up itch by k.c cramm + evan “buck” buckley (9-1-1)

claudia still gets infantilized by media surrounding iwtv despite this being core to the tragedy of her condition

i think shes always been infantilized & ppl dont see the merit of her arc bc ppl rly only care about female characters in relation with romance or if they are children [or someone’s child of sorts?] in so far as they relate to the men rearing them. [cue 5001 lestat-claudia webweaves]. claudia is both selectively infantilized & excessively adultified whenever convenient to character/s [somehow both a ‘child interfering’ and both powerful enough to ‘turn louis against lestat’] nd to a certain extent by the fandom too. speaking of the show here too - show!louis now wanting claudia as his child is never disseminated for what it is in relation to louis (how he wanted children, and how hes forcibly exiled from the public sphere & makes do with the quasi-domestic) or claudia (in her want for a companion in immortality & wanting to understand the origins of their existence. in both the book and the show its claudia who initiates the question of ‘who made lestat/vampires as a whole’) but rather ppl render show claudia inert solely as a fictional moral bludgeon to character bash louis or make stuntin like my mommy/daddy posts with lestat. i was thinking too the other day how people often talk about iwtv in the sense of outcasts but never mention claudia… which is insane bc this line in the show alone says so much

But it was 1939, and the only N* allowed in first class was the porter, and the N* passenger rode the rear. The N* vampire made do with what was left, which was fine with her.

neither second-class passenger nor porter directly serving whites: claudia is the black vampire sitting in the stowaway with the dogs and people’s luggage, earlier hiding out in university corners pretending to be the cleaner’s child, engorging herself on blood and taking body parts from her victims to put in storage all if it means she could have something for herself. shes really the ult. outcast of sorts.

always always thinking about your post that was like “normal has a very high threshold for being loved that is nearly impossible to meet and he will do *anything* to feel validated” and then today in the discord during the part where willy reveals it could’ve been either normal or scary, will said “willy fucked up normal would burn the entire world down for the tiniest crumb of validation” and just. screaming screaming forever about this boy’s inability to ever feel loved enough, he is every webweaving post about always devouring and never feeling full from love, this boy is RAVENOUS and it’s hard to understand how the oak good-boy morality can even supersede that, he has every trait imaginable to become a villain and it feels like the only thing preventing that is the desire to be good, bc tbh I don’t think he wants to be good more than he wants to be loved

SORRY FOR TAKING ALMOST TWO FUCKING WEEKS TO ANSWER THIS ANON!

Eheh, firstly *thank you* because this message is very sweet and made me extremely happy. The post you’re talking about took a good while to write and came with a lot of anxiety so it’s very nice to hear that you’ve kept fragments of it with you, I really do appreciate that!!! 💜

I’d debated for a bit on answering this privately to be honest with you, as not every fire I’ve sparked is one whose flames I wish to fan, so to speak, but everything you wrote is just so on-point and well-articulated that I couldn’t resist. Otherwise. *Ahem*. I know it's very very silly to respond to a response about an essay with what is essentially another essay, but you see, in thinking of how to answer your message, I got a little caught amongst many other things that have been on my mind... And I've seen some takes that have annoyed me for one reason or another and couldn't decide how to address those and. Well. Ultimately I decided that the stuff I wanted to talk about was connected *enough* to the stuff brought up in your message (as well as in my original post) that I could put it all together, soooooooo if you'll entertain me rambling once more~

Let's start by saying that, I recently saw a take going around stating that “Scary’s internal issues caused her external issues while Normal’s external issues caused his internal issues” (among a number of other statements that I frankly found pretty questionable), and I must say, for reasons that I hope to explain, I disagree with this assertion on both accounts!

In Scary’s case, this statement completely erases and undermines the trauma of her dad walking out, and what that does not only to her confidence and sense of self-worth, but to her relationship with her mother as well. And the degree of the impact of this external trauma on her internal view towards and treatment of herself is clear as day just by looking at the stark contrast between Terri and Scary. Scary (Terri) is someone who once had confidence in herself and could find validation and motivation internally, most recently evidenced by Terri's words of encouragement to Scary whilst under beacon of hope:

But then her dad leaves, and things get harder at home, and Scary starts to fight with her mom (her mom who she once called her best friend!!!), and she starts to feel worthless and unlovable- something that only gets worse with time as Willy alienates her from the rest of the group, case in point with this revealing exchange:  

No one’s told her they’re proud of her in a long time (sound familiar??),

her teachers at school shut her down when she tries to speak her mind or otherwise dismiss her behavior as “acting out” seemingly without any sort of intervention or attempt to actually check in with her,

[the above teen fact is from episode 31]

Only then, in response to her diminished sense of self-worth does she begin to cut herself off from the rest of the world and from her former self, most importantly quitting soccer (which we know matters a lot to her!),

and those things leave her even more vulnerable and supportless and ashamed. Not to mention all the mixed emotions she must feel when Terry walks into the picture, between actually liking him but not being able to see his love as genuine due to her relationship with her bio dad and all the frustration and shame she must feel as a result.

This is not to claim that Scary’s internal struggles do not inform a lot of what happens to her and the people around her over the run of the season- of course they do! (In fact some of the later things mentioned above are examples of that- I guess I got a bit carried away). But Scary’s major internal struggles that affect her throughout the course of the adventure are preceded by a slew of important external events that negatively affect her psyche and are in many cases out of her control. Scary’s internal struggles did not originate in a vacuum, and I absolutely would not say that they “caused” the bulk of what she has been through.

Unlike Scary, Norm’s excessive dependency on external validation to feel like he’s worth anything begins when he is very young. [Emphasis on “excessive” here, since obviously everyone requires validation from others to some degree, the point being just that this trait is so very pronounced in Normal and, as I argued a bit in the post anon is referring to, usually the most important factor informing his courses of action, superseding (but not implying the absence of) any desire to be good and help those around him. Will’s statement (the one which anon quotes) seems to corroborate this.] We know that things go so far back from Sparrow’s account in episode 17:

It’s important that this is about Normal’s kindergarten experiences too, because it tells us that Normal’s predominant internal issues go back farther than this and hence were not caused in and of themselves by his peers- instead being perhaps more fundamental to who he is as a person.

This is not to say that external events do not exacerbate the state of Normal’s psyche. In his youth most notably, we can infer that he interpreted Hero’s treatment (which of course he did not understand at the time to be her training) as favoritism, and I think it’s pretty clear by this point that his resentment of her is tied to the degradation of self-esteem that he experienced as a result.

Then of course there is the dance. Sparrow’s words to Normal during the dance obviously consist of a very pivotal moment for Norm within the context of the season, but I think it’s important to remember and not erase the fact that Normal’s internal issues with validation do not begin at the dance, as established in the kindergarten case but also further exemplified by Norm’s primary motive in becoming the school’s mascot in the first place (to get everybody to like him). I think it’s important to remember this in part since it informs so much of Normal’s reaction to what his father has to say, immediately afterwards but also throughout the whole rest of the season. No kid wants to hear that their parent isn’t proud of them, but the severity of the response to this sort of statement is going to vary drastically depending on the person, and in Norm’s case, given his natural disposition, it’s devastating. [and I swear there’s a teen talk moment where Will says basically this but I can’t find it for the life of me rn damn it lol maybe I’ll edit in the clip later if I do]

Of course in this specific case, one can still mostly say that the problem stems from outside of Normal, and that his preexisting issues exacerbate his response but are definitely not the cause of it. Outside of this instance, however, this is not always true! In fact, Normal’s excessive dependency on external validation and related rejection sensitivity (negatively) inform a large amount of his interactions with those around him, particularly Lincoln and Taylor (imagine me underlining “Taylor” several times as I say this). Truthfully that’s a whole ramble on its own, but with respect to more recent events, I have to admit that I was genuinely quite irked to find a lot of people blaming Taylor and Lincoln for Norm’s response to their uh. mech shenanigans in episode 37, choosing to frame this as an act of moral failing or even malice on their part, rather than a reflection of Normal’s own issues and room for growth. Lincoln and Taylor were simply focused on the mission at hand, and there was no good reason realistically speaking to have expected them to be aware of Normal’s emotional state at that point in time (or in general, to be aware of the jealousy their bonding moments evoke within Norm- particularly when Normal consistently fails to communicate and address those emotions with them in a manner that is direct and not passive-aggressive). Lincoln in particular is very clearly stated as not even having fun in that moment, very understandably being focused instead on the fact that his friend Scary is around his father, who he just witnessed, you know, murder someone. This is not an instance of the world going against Norm for no good reason other than to put him through it, this is a very clear example of Normal’s internal issues affecting the way he perceives external events in a manner that is not actually very reflective of the reality of the situation, and which of course feeds in further to his cycle of self-loathing (and I won’t go into it here since I sort of did in the post anon is responding to- but Normal’s negative reaction to Lincoln breaking the pick to gain Scary’s trust is another important example of this [tbh all the more so now coupled with the hypocrisy of how he handles the anchor in Goofs but that’s a tangent]). As aforementioned, Norm also struggles a good chunk of the time to actually explain his feelings in a manner that is direct and does not rely on blaming others for not picking up on his dejection, as exemplified in how this discussion goes with Lincoln in the most recent episode:

The treatment from fandom of this whole instance being reflective of a reoccurring issue I tend to have with a large chunk of the fandom, wherein the collective memory of canon tends towards getting warped to account for Norm’s mental state. Sometimes that’s hailing him as some morally-perfect, emotional reincarnate of Henry (as though the pride layer didn’t happen, as though Goofs didn’t happen, as though all of Norm’s relationship with Taylor isn’t what it is- …I feel like I should stop implying stuff about the significance Taylor and Norm’s relationship and not elaborating but it really is an essay in and of itself LOL), other times it’s just downright turning everyone around Normal into a villain, a persistent phenomenon which I sort of illustrated in the above example but also touched upon in an earlier essay (arguing that despite the fandom’s quick jump to villainize him- Lincoln breaking the guitar pick would prove to be an act of love). Sparrow also takes a good brunt of the damage from this. Sparrow saying he’s not proud of Normal gets turned into Sparrow not loving Normal (despite an abundance of proof in canon to the contrary), his apology for what he said and the support he shows for Norm in light of his alternative plan on dealing with the Doodler are completely ignored by most of the fandom, as are any other demonstrations of emotional availability and shows of growth that he displays throughout the course of the season, and the true motives behind Sparrow’s insistence on Normal living a “normal” life- to protect him from the childhood that he but also that Hero had to undergo- is somehow framed as Sparrow actually holding some kind of favoritism for Hero. It’s as though there is a complete inability on a larger scale within the fandom to see Sparrow as separate character outside of the filter of Norm’s emotions, and the other teens (including Hermie) get a similar if less pronounced treatment.

[Actually, I would argue that to some degree all of the kiddads except Terry (and Lark since he’s not officially a dad) tend to be perceived and criticized predominantly through the noise of their respective child’s emotions/behavior. In Grant’s case, Lincoln 1. spends a good part of the earlier half of the season asserting that his dads are the best dads in the world despite everything going on and 2. has a very unfortunate tendency to compartmentalize and push down his negative emotions as much as possible- in typical Wilson fashion- so the complexity and severity of Lincoln’s issues with his dad generally go understated, and only now that Lincoln has begun to be more vocal and upfront about his issues has some of Grant’s parenting finally begun to come under fire, and even then mostly only his more recent transgressions. In Taylor’s case, Taylor’s emotional security/stability and general fondness for his dad mean that Nicky is being hailed by many people as “the best dad” where in fact Nicky- while certainly helping the teens out in many ways and perhaps even acting as a friend to them- has done just about jack shit for Taylor as a *father*, and really if Taylor has anyone to thank for being as well-adjusted as he is now, it’s definitely his mom! But I digress.]

Normal and Scary are very similar, but the way fandom treats them is very different. People (mostly) seem to be able to acknowledge that Scary, in spite of her mistakes and flaws, is a scared, tired kid with a good heart who is capable and deserving of love. In Normal’s case, I just can’t seem to shake the impression that the fandom (in general) would rather strip Norm of all the things that make his character complex, and nuanced, and flawed, reducing him to an utterly uninteresting husk of a character before depicting him as anything other than a perfect goody-two-shoes who has never hurt anybody in his entire life or daring to acknowledge the fact that “Normal has been through a lot, is hurt, and deserves a good support system and emotional validation” and “Normal can at many times be his own worst enemy, sometimes makes mistakes that affect those around him, and has room to grow emotionally” are notions that can and should coexist. Or at least, that's my two cents on the matter.

Please tag me in your posts about supernatural and Brazilian music I'M BEGGING

HI I haven't posted much about it lately due to having no audience who can appreciate my genius (<- joke, it's actually because I keep forgetting to make posts) but this made me decide to look through my original posts tag and bring you. A selection of (most of) the posts (in approximately reverse chronological order):

Dean and Exagerado

Scene to the sound of Homem Primata

This one is mostly in the tags but the post proper is also. So true. Dean should listen to Legião Urbana.

There is a post that lives in my drafts and is related to that one, I might post it someday (hopefully soon). And at least two more also about the same band. You might notice I like this band a lot.

Godstiel AND Dean with Fátima (The tags in the original post have some lyrics that vibe with Godstiel to me, the linked reblog is how I think the song also vibes with Dean)

This webweave that I made half as a joke but it's unironically true

Especially for you as a fellow DTA connoisseur. DTA Cas song. I said it in the tags of the post already but. He would think every god ever hates him personally.

ADMIRÁVEL CHIP NOVO LOBOTOMY ERA CAS this one is sooooo true. Thank you past me

I actually have a whole tag for posts involving Pitty songs

Love is real but they don't want you to believe it. Supernatural finale to me.

Animatic idea that lives in my head rent-free

Lulu Santos destiel warrior in my heart (<- only knows like 5 Lulu Santos songs and they're all love songs)

Lulu Santos strikes again

Lulu Santos strikes again AGAIN

Quase Sem Querer is a Cas song

Once again this is mostly in the tags but. Legião Urbana supernatural. So true.

And one more about Legião Urbana

And another one (I actually did draw something with this)

And another one

Natasha + younger Dean

Infinita Highway my beloved is literally literally. Supernatural thee song.

This whole post (each part has relevant lyrics in the tags)

MY MOST TRUEST JOKE POST the mental image of Dean singing Evidências makes me laugh every time. Lives rent free in my mind.

This one is silly but I like it

Theee first post I made on the topic the original tags are very important to me also

Also because I remembered I also draw. These two arts:

Some lyrics and a lot of s4 redraws

And my most popular original post ever of all time

people are so weird how are u gonna bash a well meaning person and then refuse?? to tell them?? WHY you’re bashing them?? if ur post was offensive then explain why jesus christ this is not how u have healthy useful dialogue with people, it’s just piling unnecessary hate and cruelty on someone. i’m really sorry you’re being treated so shittily by this fandom, i love your posts.

hey thank you so much for this. the handful of people ive talked to have been very understanding of my side and agree that it seems like this person already didn't like me and was looking for a way to renounce me+my posts

truly, i don't know why she feels my posts are offensive. i hate the idea that a jewish person feels i was antisemitic and fetishizing jewish culture. i researched antisemitic fetishization tropes in opera during my undergrad program. ive always tried my hardest to understand minority communities that i am not a part of, without overstepping and seeming like a white knight/savior. i have always been guided through life by my ethics and a burning need for social justice. i want to fix this!

i was really pissed off yesterday and used more aggressive language in my posts and replies. today my head is clearer but im just as confused. i never expect minorities to do the emotional labor of researching topics for me and handing everything over on a silver platter. i will gladly educate myself, but i cant do that when i don't know what i did wrong. this isn't a situation where i did something clearly wrong and there's an obvious gap in my understanding - ive asked multiple friends where they feel i went wrong, and all of them have said they aren't sure

one very kind person messaged me about how, from an outsiders perspective, they were reminded of other situations where autistic people have their words or actions purposefully misinterpreted, and that seriously opened my eyes. OBVIOUSLY im not saying this person is accusing me of antisemitism because she hates autistic people. but i have often experienced people purposefully misrepresenting me and getting mad without explanation. everything starts out good, great even, and i build a script with which to interact with others. but eventually, you get very comfortable and stop following a script, start to unmask a little. and suddenly all hell breaks loose.

you're not acting right. you said the wrong thing. who would say something like that? so inappropriate. and when you ask for clarification because you genuinely do not know what you did wrong, all you receive are eyerolls and more hate because you should already know this, im not gonna spoonfeed everything to you. you're an adult figure it out yourself.

like i said, i don't think she's, like, hating on me for being autistic. i think ive gained a certain reputation (of what i don't know) in the shameless fandom, and people are projecting their preexisting judgement into me. this means that they don't actually want me to apologize. they don't care. they think i am already not a good person and just want to point that out to me to shame me into saying sorry because they think it'll knock me down a few pegs. whatever. my real offline life is much worse than getting mildly ganged up on on the internet. ill survive. i still want to finish my mickey embroidery and my edits/webweavings and my fics. maybe i will, maybe i won't. like ive mentioned many times before, i have pretty bad rejection sensitive dysphoria and i need to be reassured i will get feedback on my works before i ever post them. my fics were already being ignored by most of the big fandom writers - i think those will just have to be scrapped because i genuinely cannot take hollowing out my chest and putting it to paper only to get a few nice comments/kudos. the embroidery though, that's for me. i definitely wanna do it. the other original posts like webweavings, idk maybe i really don't know

on tagging

Do not follow me or interact or look at this blog if you are related to me.

I usually tag things tw [trigger] or .[trigger], and I try to be extremely extensive, and please let me know if you want something tagged! 

I need eating disorders tagged, and I also prefer graphic body horror tagged as well, as well as any mention of incest/pedophilia. Additionally please tag drug normalisation & fetishisation if we are mutuals, and note I may unfollow for abuse apologia. Please feel free to message me about anything as well, unless it’s these.

I am not comfortable with my things being tagged with ship names for pedophilia or incest, which I also have blacklisted and try to avoid (in short please don't tag my posts with SamDean).

If there's a potential that where content I reblog from goes could hurt you personally, you can personally tell me to try to blacklist your URL or not reblog for you. I have a lot of followers and a lot of activity and could never ever successfully promise that some original post wouldn't down line end up somewhere with a tag that could be triggering, and I do not block many people myself, but I genuinely never want to hurt anyone or trigger anyone.

I sometimes post about very dark or potentially triggering things, so please feel free to let me know if there needs to be something else tagged! I do tag all my cage trauma posts with Lucifer and try to with other warnings, but let me know if there’s anything specific.

I would also want minors to blacklist 18+ and not interact with that content on my blog.

as for organisation, I tag #incoherents as my personal and creation tag. I also have a general writing tag and a more targeted writing tag. I also have an edit tag, a webweave tag, a lyrics tag, an ask+anonymous tag, etc.

For fandom, I generally tag everything including reblogs with a shortened name (such as hs, spn, sammy, cas, dean, etc,) and then the full+that for original posts (homestuck, supernatural, sam winchester, castiel, dean winchester). This is also true of other things such as mental health and mh, so forth, unless tumblr censored it. I usually don’t tag as much for music/aesthetic unless it’s a trigger or an original post, but I try to be very thorough with fandom, and if there’s every something someone wants tagged let me know! though I won’t tag not [insert] because it would be too much for me to keep track of. I tagged wank cw for negative things in fandom.

For Supernatural, I also am careful to tag all ship content if you don’t like a particular ship (like destiel or sastiel), and gen tags are usually character and character (sam and dean), though some ship names can be platonic for sure. I tag seasons (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15). I also tag most episodes by name (pilot, all hell breaks loose, lucifer rising), and I tag them by caps and their number name for screen caps/edits (1x01, 2x21/2x22, 4x22). I also have a tag .f for foundational parts of the show and .f.c for relating to characters, .l for significant parallels, .h for more headcanon than canon, and .s.n for science related, but these are very incomplete and new. 

My tagging is extensive, but it’s still hard to find certain types because I posted way more than my system was used to!