I don't know if you answered this before. But what was Lu Da's childhood like? O.O

It was, uh… Not Good. I touched on aspects of his childhood via a “five-sentence” prompt fic a while back, but there is certainly more I can get into, which I am going to put under the cut for substance/parental abuse and suicide.

Lu Da came into the world in 62 AG in the tiny village of Gai Ho, or what he likes to call a mud pit, in the Southern Earth Kingdom. He was the second born of Rangsei, a penniless orphan of low birth, and Ji Hun, an addict and disreputable merchant. He has an older sister named Soraya, an earthbender like her father. Lu Da and his mother are non-benders.

Soraya was sunshine bottled into skin, light and warmth spilling out of her at every turn. They were best friends, inseparable, much of their days spent playing around the pond that skulked in the little valley between their village and the next. Due to his occupation, their father was often away for long stretches, which would leave their family pinching pennies or living on next to nothing until his return. Those were the times Lu Da and Soraya would come to covet the most; for all that Ji Hun brought back with him in money or goods or food, he took so much more.

When their father was home, it was like living with a keg of blasting jelly, just waiting for a spark. Lu Da can’t remember a time his father wasn’t physically abusive with his mother. But over the years, as his drinking and using escalated, things only worsened for them all. He was eight, Soraya eleven, the first time they went out to play and she didn’t race to beat him to their pond. In time, he came to understand her gingerly gait and flushed face, the quiet that had fallen over her, why she snapped at him if he ever asked what was wrong.

The first time he tried to intervene, the door wasn’t even locked. The force of the iron kettle in his young grip had only managed to stun and enrage their father, who beat Lu Da within an inch of his life that night. It was a year before he worked up the courage to try again, but Soraya pleaded with him to leave it be. He couldn’t understand then, couldn’t have known that he had only ever succeeded in making things worse for her. A conduit through which their father funneled the brunt of his rage.

At one time, Lu Da had resented Soraya for eventually leaving him the way she did. It was little things, at first. The way the sunshine slowly clouded over. A terse word where a tender one had been. Later, it was days-long disappearances without warning, only for her to finally stumble home looking hollowed out, greeting his relieved concern with a door in his face. Each time was longer than the time before, until one day she simply never returned.

He was eleven, that same year, when he lost his mother. Or rather, found her. Lying in their washtub, gashes from elbows to wrists. Lu Da had never shared a close bond with Rangsei, but that was the moment he hated her. Hated her for not doing enough to protect Soraya, to protect him, not even herself. Hated her for leaving him, all alone, trapped in this life with Ji Hun.

In the year that followed, during his father’s long absences, he was left on his own for weeks on end. No one ever came to check on him. The little food he had would run out and he’d be left eating leaves from the trees, grass, worms, spiders, whatever he could find. It was during this time, he first learned how to steal to survive, having taught himself to tread almost silently when his father was around. Getting caught and beaten was only a lesson in what to do differently. It was preferable to the violence his father preferred.

Ji Hun broke an axe handle over his back when he didn't chop enough wood. He pounded Lu Da’s ribs to breaking when he stumbled under the weight of hauling buckets of water. And once, when all of it boiled over in a blaze of crying and curses, his father buried him alive on their tiny plot of land to “teach him how to be a man.” It was a wonder he was able to be revived once his father deigned to unearth him.

The next time Ji Hun went away, Lu Da started running, and didn’t stop until he collapsed from exhaustion in the dodgy streets of Gaoling. Homeless, starving, and dehydrated, he fell back on what Po Jiang would later call his uncanny aptitude for theft. It was how they met, after all. A stroke of luck, or mercy, if the universe could be said to have any.

Lu Da even knew a mark when he saw one, he’d later tell him, having chosen to pick the pocket of a man who could afford to spare a coin pouch or two. Lu Da ate his first real meal in weeks that night, reveling in his little victory, until Po Jiang returned the next day with an ultimatum. Either he could turn him over to the authorities on charges of theft, or he could come and work for him.

Po Jiang is the kingpin of a prolific network of thieves and criminals fronting as an altruistic society in the southwestern Earth Kingdom. This is where Lu Da spent the remainder of his childhood, where he perfected his skills as a thief, a sword duelist, and rose through the ranks to later train and freelance as an assassin.

Po Jiang may not be the most scrupulous man, but he was the first parental figure in Lu Da’s life who didn’t hurt him, who showed him what it means to be loved. This is the man Lu Da considers a father, the man who raised him not only in the ways of criminality but in everything. He taught him about the world, about life, helped him discover his affinity for music.

Lu Da was nineteen when he fled the Earth Kingdom, stowing away on an outward-bound ship after what should have been a routine assassination job gone bad. Really bad. The ship was later captured by pirates and all on board were given the choice either to die or join their crew. He had the gall, some experience, and nothing to lose — and the rest, as they say, is history.

🗣️‼️IMPORTANT SHIT INCOMING‼️🗣️

Please sign this petition if you haven’t already. KOSA is a dangerous anti-privacy bill that’s harmful to marginalized groups, ESPECIALLY minors. I thought this bill got vetoed months ago, but I was unfortunately wrong…

In a nutshell, it will severely censor the internet in order to “protect” minors from “inappropriate” content, which can include LGBTQ+ content. But then they were like, “BuT WhY sToP thEre?” And guess what? (Possibly toxic) parents of minors can now view their kids internet history more than ever. This can, of course, lead to abuse incidents, minors getting disowned, or even suicide.

Is this bill scary? Hell yes! Can we fight it? Again, hell yes! So get on it. Sign some FUCKING petitions!!/lh

So like after making that I think Steven's tragedy is overlooked confession I realised it isn't just him but also everyone else . Including Jack & Dave the most popular characters in this fandom

So like Dee. She was a child. I think around 6 years old. Idk but Im sure she wasn't even 10. And she also died in her birthday??. So like imagine being so young going to a pizzeria to celebrate your birthday, and then, you get killed by a pink fuck, in a place you thought was supposed to be fun and harmless children entertainment fun. And then said pink fuck, FORCES your soul in an animatronic. So like you spend decades, trying to save other children so they won't end up like you. Jesus, she tried her hardest to save other children, to help give them their happiest day that was taken away from them at such young ages. But it was a cycle of failure. She couldn't save them. She was still, a child, like them. A child that was forced to mature at such young age. Can only do much. It's so fucking tragic. I love her I rlly wanna hug her.

Peter. People seem to say that he abandoned Dee and Jack. But I don't think he did. He just moved on with his wife. That's kinda what married people do. Just because he wasn't there, doesn't mean he outright abandoned them. If he had. I don't think Jack would had run off to his place for help after his and Dee's death. Or that Henry's line about his family dying just to get away from him, and that he meant more as a phone guy than he did to his family when he was alive. Would had affected him, if he actually tried getting away from them. He feels bad for not being there for them. I don't blame him. He was a working man. He probably COULDN'T be there at Dee's party cause of work. Fazbender's is a shit ass place to work at anyway. He still blames himself. For his family falling apart. For leaving. He spent many years slaved at Freddy's while also having flashbacks/memories when he was alive. Sounds awful. His suicidal outburst in the evil route isn't talked about enough. He wanted to die. If it meant he'd see Caroline again. Oof

Even Jack and Dave's tragedies are overlooked.

Dave's backstory is so messed that it actually makes me sick in my stomach. No kidding. (Not saying it's bad or anything) So I'd prefer to not talk too much about it. Hope you understand .But in a nutshell. It's about someone who never had any kind of love growing up desperately trying to get the approval/love of the people he loves. And even considers family. So much that he's willing to take any kind of abuse, fucked up experiments, manipulation and literally killing him. To be with them. Cause he never had any love. He thinks they care for him. And that's enough for him to literally cheat death and posses his own corpse, over, and over, and over again. Just to be with them. That he was willing to murder. For them. Cause they told him he was doing good. Jesus. It's messed up.

Jack's own tragedy, and blackjack's, he lost his parents and was left as an orphan to take care of his sister at an actually young age. I think he was in his 19-20s when that happened. In fact Im sure he wasn't even old enough to drink on the state he lives in. Which I think already explains how messed up his mental health actually was. And then one day he messed up. He left Dee and that led to her death. He tried to find her, to save her. It cost him his own life. He was dead, soulless, people didn't saw him as human. They knew him as the ' scary orange man/guy'. But he made a promise. It's sad, one of the very few times he's actually acknowledged as human. Is the dsaf 3 good ending. Aka where he literally did everything for everyone knowing that in the end he couldn't pass on and get his own happiest day. And blackjack's regret. It was so strong that it gave him the power to go back in time. Just cause his guilt to turn back the clock and save Dee was that strong.

I think people should start seeing dsaf as something more than just "haha funny orange and aubergine guys have sex in Vegas". There are so many other things to it than davesport. For a series that's as much of a shitpost as dsaf. It's actually filled with angst. And so much potential only for the fandom to focus only on one part of it.

Anyway hi.

Can you guys that I like angst by now?

.

Yves in a nutshell

wheww i gotta admit Yves is an allegory for parents who loves their children unconditionally while standing on business taking care of their kids so they wont grow up to pieces of self destructive shits, and they do so in a way that's loving n not abusive -- like a parent who is 100% in control of their emotions that they wont hit or yell unnecessarily , like a parent who use their words to actually explain why the thing I did was wrong and not just fuck around and find out method

i made yves into a mind reader type of person and pays a lot of attention to u is cause damn I wish that my parents paid more attention to me and the surroundings cause then I wouldn't have 2 face so much pain </3 and they'd get to protect me and they'd get to explain what I'm feeling and I wont meltdown and get shamed for it

and like a parent who wont shame their kid for having unconventional hobbies or childish interests, instead would join in too and make the kid feel supported and accommpanied

amd like fr unconditional love is so alien to me and I'm glad I'm not alone, the concept of being loved despite of ur flaws is so baffling to yall and Im glad I wasn't the only one who feel dat way,,

like damn i see why Im churning out so much Yves content now cause like frick its stuff that I wished I experienced since a young age and that comforts me, daddy mommy issues flaring up badly at this time of the year 😍

An analysis of Momochi: from a student interested in psychology

The main thing I’ll be talking about here is the way he treats his s/o and the members of Veronica, though there’s more emphasis on the former. Hope you guys enjoy this wall of text I wrote at school during my free time.

TW: mentions of suicide, abuse, toxic relationships

First up, the way he treats his s/o might be due to how his parents interacted, or how he was treated. In this scenario, the most possible situation at hand is:

Parents’ toxic relationship ---> Momochi ---> (Projection) S/O

+ Research has shown that one’s parents’ relationship will affect the child’s love life. For example, Person A’s parents squabble and fight every day, one blaming the other and the one silently accepting (no retaliation). Communication is non-existent. Growing up, Person A finds themselves in the same situation despite constantly telling themselves not to be like their parents. This has happened quite a lot.

+ I believe that Momochi’s mother was on the receiving end of the abuse, considering she was implied to have committed suicide. If we also take into consideration Awauta and Gurensinjyu, this is the most possible situation.

Now, Momochi’s growth environment caused him to project his mother onto his S/O, regardless of whether he’s aware that his actions are bad. To let everyone understand easier, here’s another example: a mother gets scolded by her superiors at work, and in turn scolds her child at home, while saying it’s “education”. This is a type of unconscious self-defense mechanism. To summarize,

a loop of “Repression” (emotions) + “Rationalize” (thoughts) + “Addiction” (behavior).

Repression: The environment he grew up in caused him to grew up neglected and unloved. He IS angry, and he should be, but he couldn’t find a way to let out those negative emotions, so he repressed them. They are still present, however.

Rationalize: His thoughts and fears, especially matters regarding his girlfriend and Veronica (fear of abandonment). He unconsciously rationalizes those fears and convinces himself that he is in the right, and he is the superior one.

Addiction: Momochi’s behavior towards his S/O. Because of the two factors above, he feels a sense of satisfaction when he sees his girlfriend in pain because of him specifically. This is especially evident whenever he chokes his S/O in his drama tracks.

Summary:

Momochi’s repressed negative emotions from how he was raised, combined with his fears and thoughts, make him the person he is right now. A toxic loop, but to him, it is still love nonetheless. He does truly love his girlfriend (I used up all my strength just to write these 6 words), but because of environmental and psychological factors, his idea of love is twisted and incredibly unusual.

No one taught him how to love someone properly, and nor do I think he loves himself either. He puts on a facade of superiority to hide his insecurities. Here’s his mindset in a nutshell:

“I don’t know how to love, so I’ll show her love in my own way. This is so she’ll never leave my side. I’m scared, but I don’t know any other way to make her stay with me.”

“The members of Veronica are all rich and good-looking. I can only surpass them with my skills. I’m scared of losing my only worth because they all surpass me in terms of background and looks.”

Anyways, that’s all. I hope this Momochi guy goes to superhell. Actually, superhell is too good for him, he should be stuck in between the limbo of heaven and hell so he suffers forever. That’s it. And to everyone who read this till the end, seek help. Thank you.

Source(s):

How Psychology Works: Applied Psychology Visually Explained——Penguin Random House

你背负了谁的伤：从家庭的原生三角关系，疗愈代际伤害——冯以量

心里防卫——洪培芸

爱情创伤来自童年创伤——黄惠萱

The Donkeyskin portion of Cinderella Tales from Around the World has brought me to the various Donkeyskin tales from from Germany, Switzerland, and France. These of course include the two most famous variants of this Cinderella subtype: the French Donkeyskin (Peau-d'Ane) by Charles Perrault and the German All-Kinds-of-Fur (Allerleirauh) by the Brothers Grimm.

*The Grimms' version is the one I've always been most familiar with, more so than Perrault's. Just in case someone doesn't know it, I'll give a full summary. At the beginning, the dying queen makes the king promise not to remarry unless he finds a bride as beautiful as she is and with hair as golden as her own; as it turns out, of course, only their daughter fits this description. To try to stave off the wedding, the princess asks her father for gowns that resemble the sun, moon, and stars, and for a fur coat made from the skin of every kind of animal in the kingdom. Despite all odds, her father gives her these gifts, so she hides the three gowns in a nutshell, disguises herself in the fur coat, runs away, and becomes a scullery maid in another king's castle. When three balls take place, the cook permits her to go and watch the dancers for a little while; secretly she puts on each of her fine gowns, attends the balls, dances with the young king, and then hurries back to the kitchen in time to cook the king's favorite bread soup. Each night, she slips a gold trinket into the king's bowl, but when he sends for her to ask about it, she denies knowing where it came from. Finally, on the third night, the king slips a ring onto her finger, and she stays too long at the ball and is forced to put her fur coat back on over her gown rather than changing. When the king sends for her as usual to ask about the gold trinket in his soup, he sees the ring on her finger and tears off her coat to reveal the gown beneath it. Thus they're married and live happily ever after.

**This collection also includes Andrew Lang's version of the tale from The Green Fairy Book, which is bowdlerized so that the princess just runs away to escape from a loveless arranged marriage to one of her father's counselors.

**In the first edition of the Grimms' collection, before the three balls, All-Kinds-of-Fur has to take off the young king's boots every night, and he always throws them at her head. This obviously reflects the common pattern in Donkeyskin tales of the prince/king abusing the princess in her disguise, but the Grimms omitted it from later editions as one of their efforts to make the tales "more moral."

**In their footnotes, the Grimms mention another variant that doesn't include an incestuous father, but instead gives the princess a wicked stepmother and stepsister, who drive her away out of jealousy after a prince chooses her to marry rather than the stepsister. They also mention versions where instead of a fur coat, the princess dresses herself in a coat of moss from the forest.

**One of these days I plan to try a recipe for German bread soup just because of this story!

*Besides the Grimms' version, this book also includes a second German version, called Aschenpüster ("Ash-blower," and clearly related to the common Dutch name for Cinderella, "Assepoester"), and a German-language Swiss version, Aschengrübel. In Aschenpüster, which for the most part is similar to the Grimms' version, the heroine demands dresses of gold, silver, and jewels from her father (who is just a rich lord, not a king), as well as a cloak of crow feathers that becomes her disguise, and a magic wand that can transport her wherever she wants to go. In Aschengrübel, there's no incest theme: the heroine is just an orphan whose parents left her nothing but a beautiful gown, which she hides when she becomes a servant to an aristocratic family. But a mysterious dwarf appears throughout the story and greets her, then vanishes, and in the end he appears with her parents' long-lost will, revealing that they left her a fortune, giving her a suitable dowry for her marriage.

*Perrault's Donkeyskin goes like this, for anyone not familiar with it: The dying queen makes the king promise not to remarry unless he finds a bride more beautiful than herself. Of course no one fits this description except their daughter, and the grief-crazed king insists on marrying her. The princess consults her fairy godmother, the Lilac Fairy, who first urges her to demand gowns that resemble the sky, the moon, and the sun, and then to demand that the king sacrifice his most prized possession, a magic donkey that defecates gold coins, by killing it and giving the princess its skin. Unfortunately, he does all these things, so the fairy gives the princess a magic chest to secretly store her dresses, and urges her to wear the donkey skin as a disguise and run away. The princess obeys, reaches another kingdom, and becomes a scullery maid and animal herder at a farm near the palace. On Sundays and holidays, when she doesn't have to work, she shuts herself in her room and secretly puts on her gowns. One day the prince happens to stop at the farm, and he sees the princess in her sunbeam gown through the keyhole of her room and falls in love with her. But out of respect he doesn't approach her, but goes to ask the farm folk about her, and they insist that there's no princess, only a servant called Donkeyskin. The prince falls gravely ill and insists that only a cake baked by Donkeyskin will cure him. Donkeyskin bakes him his cake, slipping a ring into the batter. After the prince finds the ring, he has every maiden in the land try it on, and of course, it only fits Donkeyskin's finger. The Lilac Fairy them reveals the princess's true heritage, and the prince and princess are married; the princess's father, now sane again and married to another queen, attends the wedding and is forgiven.

**Andrew Lang also bowdlerized this tale in The Grey Fairy Book, by making Donkeyskin the king's adopted daughter, and by having gold coins fall from the donkey's ears instead of the other end.

**In a strange choice, Perrault goes slightly out of his way not to condemn the incestuous father-king. At the beginning, he emphasizes the king's benevolence and his subjects' happiness and love for him, and later frames his attempted incest as madness caused by the loss of his beloved wife. He also seems to want to blame the queen more than her husband: on her deathbed, she insists that the king must remarry to produce a male heir, but secretly she doesn't want him to remarry, so she makes the apparently impossible demand that the new queen be more beautiful than she was. And of course the princess forgives her father in the end, which is far from a universal ending for this tale.

***Of course, Perrault's stories always have at least a hint of satire in them, and maybe he meant for his readers to judge the king more harshly than he pretends to. There's also the fact that in reconciling with her father, Donkeyskin gains solid proof of her royal status, receives appropriate paternal permission to marry, and likely receives a dowry too. This makes her an unquestionably suitable bride for the prince by the standards of the era. In hindsight, this might also explain why Perrault's Cinderella so emphatically forgives her stepfamily, besides "virtue": her status as a daughter of the gentry is what makes her a suitable bride for a prince, so if she cut ties with her family, the king and queen might not accept her so easily.

*Based on the other French variants this book features, Perrault's version seems to be a typical French variant of the tale, although of course it's richer in literary detail than the others. Still, the others feature unique details too.

**The majority of French variants are called Donkeyskin (Peau d'Ane, Peau d'Asne, or Peau d'Anette). The donkey isn't usually a magical one, though (that detail is uniquely Perrault's), and isn't always sacrificed by the king either. In several versions, she buys a donkey after she runs away, then kills it and disguises herself in its skin.

**At least two versions specifically make the heroine's father the king of Spain. I suppose this is because in other European countries, Spain is often treated as the "exotic" land where unusual and exciting things can happen.

**In most of these variants, the king just decides to marry his daughter because she's so beautiful or because she resembles her late mother. But in one version, The King of Spain's Daughter, he resolves to marry only a woman who can wear his late wife's wedding clothes, and they fit no one but his daughter.

**The three gowns are usually themed to the sun, moon, and stars, though sometimes their themes are gold, silver, and jewels. The heroine usually stores them in a chest, but sometimes in nutshells.

**The heroine's love interest is almost always a prince, except in the French Basque Donkeyskin, where he's a king.

**The heroine typically becomes an animal herder – a goose girl, a turkey girl, or a shepherdess – at a royal palace. She doesn't typically attend balls in these French versions, though, but secretly dons her beautiful gowns in a private room or out in nature on her days off from work. One day the prince happens to see her and falls in love. Again, an exception is the French Basque Donkeyskin, which does have the heroine attend three balls. But in that version and the others alike, the prince/young king finally falls ill with longing and requests food made by Donkeyskin. She slips a ring into the cake or bread she makes, and the prince has every maiden try the ring on, but it only fits Donkeyskin's finger.

**The French variants typically don't include the theme of the prince abusing the disguised heroine. Once again, though, the French Basque Donkeyskin is an exception: after the first and second balls, Donkeyskin provokes the young king by saying that the beautiful lady must have disliked him, or she wouldn't have run away, and for this the king beats her with a slipper. At the next ball, the "lady" tells him that her name is "Braf-le-mandoufle" ("Beaten with the slipper").

**One version, The Golden Bull, follows the pattern we saw in some of the Italian versions, and has the heroine hide inside a hollow object (in this case a golden statue of a bull) which is sold to the prince, rather than running away in disguise and becoming a servant. Every night she secretly comes out of the statue and eats the prince's food, until finally she's discovered.

**Peau d'Anette features a second half that resembles The Three Spinners by the Brothers Grimm. To test whether or not the heroine is a suitable wife for the prince, the queen locks her in a room each day to see how well she can spin, knit, cook, and sweep. But four strange-looking people appear – three women and a man – who do the tasks for the heroine on the condition that she invite them to her wedding, which she does in the end.

**As usual, a few versions don't include the incest theme. In one version, the heroine is just a wealthy young woman in love with the prince, who disguises herself and becomes a servant at the castle to be near him. In another, Césarine, the heroine's father loves her, but her mother hates her, which causes strife between them, so she runs away to save their marriage. And in the French Basque Donkeyskin mentioned a few times above, she's neither a princess nor of high birth, but just a castle servant – when robbers steal some of the royal treasure, the king and queen accuse her of the theft, and Snow White-style, they order men to take her into the forest, kill her, and bring back her heart. But the men kill a donkey in her place, give her its skin to disguise herself, and take its heart to the king and queen. She then becomes a goose girl at the castle of a different king, whom she eventually marries, and she regularly meets a mysterious old woman, who gives her walnuts that contain silver and gold dresses, and a peach containing a diamond dress.

**The book also includes another French tale where the heroine is called "Donkeyskin," but which isn't really a Donkeyskin tale, but just a vaguely Cinderella-like story. A merchant's daughter and a rich young man fall in love, but her cruel mother and jealous sisters force her to wear a donkey skin to make her look ugly and drive her sweetheart away, and demand that she pick up a full bushel of barley with her tongue, grain by grain, before she can marry. The donkey skin doesn't dissuade the young man, however, and ants pick up all the barley grains for her.

Next I'll be reading the variants from Spain.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @adarkrainbow, @themousefromfantasyland

Oh god, thank you, like if we did assume anon comes from a good place we understand where anon comes from but also like...yea nothings going to help if we don't like, Have A Replacement and you definitely know more than us about this one.

If it's alright to ask: we're wondering if you have any sort of knowledge that could be passed onto us (and others in a situation like ours) to mitigate that?

For more specific context, people definitely sing their praises to IEPs a lot and we saw someone mention them somewhere, but we have very unfortunately been on the end of it where it has been used as a vehicle for oppression and ableism anyways (WE PROMISE those twitter threads will be moved here to Tumblr we just haven't done it yet sory sksksk), because we had abusive parents who were "only" emotionally abusive if that makes sense.

We understand IEPs are helpful to lots of folks but it can be isolating as all fuck when praise is all people do rather than look at some of the tiny nuances or the ways people use it to keep the status quo instead of helping folks. Like how it was used as an extension of Autistic conversion "therapy" / applied behavioral analysis "therapy" when we had to put up with it.

Nutshell/TLDR: how do people use what they have learned to improve education when they didn't really. Learn anything. And how to bring attention to some of the things that nobody wants to talk about without sounding like we're being dismissive. We're so burnt out here when it comes to discussing any education system before university. Please share your wisdom (but only if you want to)!

I am not like, The Expert here, but I will offer some thoughts! Just take them with a grain of salt; I don't know everything, and I could always be missing things.

I will say that IEPs/504 plans are of particular interest to me right now, and imo, the problem is pretty broad and pretty deep.

My own personal context is that my brother was diagnosed with ADHD before even starting school, was put in SpEd early on, and had some pretty traumatic experiences because of that (we picked him up from school once to find him in an isolation room- a closet with one bulletproof window in the door carpeted floor-to-ceiling- because he had acted out in class. In first grade). He believed wholeheartedly that he was incapable of controlling himself, and he developed extremely low self-esteem. I don't know if no diagnosis would have been any better for him, but his diagnosis and "accommodations" (iirc he had an IEP) actively did him harm.

I, on the other hand, was not diagnosed with ADHD until I was 22, and I had to go out and do it myself. I had struggled with school my whole life, I had been in shouting matches with my mom about it, I have trauma about it, and I developed a different kind of low self-esteem around being told I was "choosing" to fail. Once I was medicated, my grades suddenly shot up, my GPA shot up, and I got into a pretty damn good grad school about it. I'm left wondering how things might have been different for me if I'd been understood as someone who was trying but struggling, and who needed support, rather than someone who was not trying at all.

I also don't think it's reasonable to expect that every disabled kid is going to be identified by the system, which is what most teachers seem to think is the issue: that they aren't good enough at armchair diagnosing 6-year-olds yet. It's just not gonna happen. Someone will be missed, and they shouldn't have to struggle alone because nobody else realized what they were struggling with.

Imo, what we need to be pushing for most urgently is universal accommodations, available without any need for diagnosis, disclosure, or anything else: Buckets of fidgets kids can grab whenever, alternative seating options, built-in breaks and frequent snacks, no penalties for late work/tardiness/absences, no graded tests, etc. (I would also like to see more project-based learning & growth-oriented grading, personally!)

As far as learning more: I can recommend some readings to start, and I'll link them here. They're also pretty dense; the grad school recommendation is to read the intro and conclusion in full, and just read the first and last sentence of every paragraph aside from that.

Here's the big folder (which I need to update) of all of the education-related readings I have ever been assigned. I recommend specifically searching "disability" and "democratic"/"democracy"; those will probably be the most relevant to what you're interested in.

Some good starting points:

Leonardo, Broderick (2011) - Smartness as Property: A Critical Exploration of Intersections Between Whiteness and Disability Studies

Carolen, Guinn (2007) - Differentiation: Lessons from Master Teachers

Alverman (2001) - Reading Adolescents' Reading Identities: Looking Back to See Ahead

Veletsianos, Houlden (2020) - Radical Flexibility and Relationality as Responses to Education in Times of Crisis

So you might know that I consider myself the greatest enemy of the Bridgerton show, predominantly because it's effect on the period drama genre and people's perception of history (it doesn't matter that it's "alternative history/fantasy" when I see dozens of people confidently claim that Queen Charlotte was, in fact, black/mixed race, which she was not, she might have had one "non-whote" ancestor at least like 7 generations back, and that's the last thing 'Ill say on the topic)---

Anyway, so, yeah, I don't like the show, but some time ago I was airing the idea that I might read one of the books out of curiousity/because of a bout of mazoschism, and I think it was @jomiddlemarch who said I should try the one with Eloise.

Well, I did it. I read that book.

In a nutshell?

Do I think it's a good book? No, it's mediocre at best, and at some points it's dumb as a pebble.

Were there aspects I enjoyed? Yeah, definitely.

Giving more details... well. The plotting was juvenile and, dare I say it, Wattpad-like at some points--like, the wedding happened about 2/3s through the book, we had the obligatory smut scene, and then the author seemingly realized that other stuff, like, need to happen, so we had some random happenings go down really quickly. The writing itself is pretty mediocre, I especially disliked the long, rambling inside monologues, and, honestly, the child characters (there are two eight-year-olds from the male lead's first marriage) were rather wooden. And despite having written a bunch of Regency romances... JQ seemes to have a tenuous grasp on the era at best (see: Eloise travelling from London to Glucestershire in coach in the span of one night, not wearing a freaking chemise and stays under her damned wedding dress, etc.)

At the same time, although stylistically not really fitting, the scenes with Eloise's brothers were rather fun, and JQ really sparkled with their witty dialogue, and I actually really enjoyed the theme of generational trauma---of how the male lead avoided creating a relationship with his children because he was afriad of turning into the same abusing parent his own father was, and how his character arc included learning how to be a good father.

So... yeah. It's dumb as a pebble, but at least it's a pleasantly entertaining pebble.

ayo what's poppin it's gemma here ( s/h, 21+ ) & i am so beyond excited for opening day! i'll be writing for the park i canon, park jeongho, the mayor's son & current chairman of the urban construction committee! i've got a ton more info under the cut ( mild tw for abuse ) cause as usual i haven't learnt to shut my trap but if you're at all keen to plot with me please hit that LIKE button! would definitely prefer d*scord but i can do tumblr ims too ( just afraid of the shadowban ya kno )! but yes tysm mwah!

speaking directly to my sisters in the church of astrology he's a scorpio sun ( mysterious n evil coded basically ) / taurus moon ( craves stability ) / cap rising ( hardworking & efficient lil bastard ) so yeah he's a bit mad to say the least

only child of park jeongwon, the current mayor! to understand jeongho you need to understand a little bit about the parks, but essentially every way in which they move comes with a political agenda so it's no surprise that his parents' marriage is fully a political arrangement! the point of the marriage was to sire an heir and once jeongho was born his mom peaced the fuck out of parenting and went on her merry way living as the jobless wife of the wealthiest man in town! she probably had intended to care for jeongho to some degree but she peaced out honestly for survival ( more on that in the next dot point )

that said jeongho was brought up almost entirely by his father and what i mean by that is he was brought up by the help and criticised often by his father. jeongwon in a nutshell is a smart man honestly prodigy level smart ( think one of those kids who don't study and gets 100% on a test cause the answer is just "common sense" ) with zero empathy so what you get is a grating narcissist who thinks they're better than einstein and he expects no less of his son! most of jeongho's childhood was his father asking for jeongho's test scores and when it's not up to par he just gets smacked and berated and called an idiot kid and honestly he's not much nicer to his wife which is why she made herself scarce

that was essentially the entirety of jeongho's childhood and it lends to his ocpd which he developed at a relatively young age! most people mistake it for ocd but it's really not that he just has an extreme obsession with perfectionism, order and control so he gets irrationally upset when things are not absolutely perfect like everything in his wardrobe is colour-coded and organised by attire type and everyone needs to wash their hands before interacting with him and the help must clean the parts of the house that any human walks through so yeah it's honestly pretty bad but in typical ocpd style he sees no issue with this and thinks other people are just lazy and unclean

anyway as per usual after high school he fucks off to the army and serves in the navy! he chose the navy mostly because jeongho had found goero's ocean to be really calming and had spent a lot of his youth swimming there when he needed to escape his dad! it's when he's in the army that he finds out his cousin passes which honestly is a shame because he liked jeongbin but at the end of the day jeongho wasn't really super close to him so it was kind of whatever

...which explains why he decides it's a good idea to scoop the late jeongbin's girlfriend and attempt to marry her!? as i said everything the parks do is politically motivated and there is no better political move frankly than to marry a yang to combine the park and yang assets so like sorry jeongbin but yeah! outside of those positives jeongho also frankly wanted to marry yang to "win" over his father in terms of choosing a spouse cause obviously his father did not marry a yang ( now's a good time to slip in that this father and son duo are constantly in competition ) and this was really his first ever rebel moment against his dad ( which if you think about it is pretty pathetic )

until his fiance jilted his ass at the altar so now he's the laughing stock of the town and his father is the striking image of mother gothel! after this whole bout jeongho finally and painfully admits that he's lost in this competition with his dad and he is most definitely dumber than his dad and so from here on out he just does everything his control freak of a dad says

father says go to uni so he fucks off to get an undergrad polsci degree then his dad tells him to marry one of his lackey's daughters so he can maintain control over jeongho AND his wife so he fucks off and proposes to shin and now with the land developers coming into goero his dad tells him to run for chairman of the urban construction committee so jeongwon can fully wash his hands of this land developer business ( importantly, he wants jeongho to put a stop to it and make sure no one sells ) so off he goes and that's the reason why he's currently chairman of said committee

cho jiyeon. as said, jeongwon is a really grating man who puts a lot of pressure on his son and constantly berates and belittles him whenever he doesn't get things done and what his father simply cannot understand is how the land developers are still in goero and chalks it up to how useless jeongho is. jiyeon continually bothers the parks and reminds jeongwon that she's still here and jeongho gets yelled at like he's fifteen again and at some point while jiyeon's talking her head off and says something mildly condescending to a "country boy" like him he realises that things would be so much easier if she just... disappeared. anger gets the best of him and you know how the rest of that story goes

anyway yeah jeongho is an absolute asshole sure but he's genuinely not a psychopath so what happened with jiyeon haunts him heaps but he tries his very best to move past it and live life as though she genuinely skipped town but yeah! few years pass and it becomes easier and now we're all caught up!

ok this was so long like you can stop here if you want below is just a bit about his personality / what to expect in interactions with him! also i don't have any plot ideas mostly because it's a skeleton rp and i feel like his relationship with each canon is unique given the political scene and stuff so generic plot ideas are kinda hard but yeah!

ok so personality-wise i would say that given his dad has drilled into him how useless and stupid he is jeongho is very aware that he is not the sharpest tool in the shed so he honestly is willing to hear people out when they talk to him! don't get me wrong he's definitely proud but he's not proud enough to think that he doesn't need anyone's help because he knows all kings have their advisors and he needs them! no shame in the game! ( also to clarify he's not actually stupid he's probably more just the type of person that gets good grades because he works hard and is organised and does all his assignments before it's due and not the type that gets up the day of the assignment due date and does it within an hour and gets a high distinction for it )

his father is also a really grating man to everyone else because he is smart so he thinks he doesn't need anyone cause everyone's suggestions are always dumb compared to him and his father often burns bridges but! because jeongho is aware of his weaknesses he is not that type of person so while he may feel a certain way about you he definitely is the sort to put on a polite enough facade! one thing he tends to do is the compliment sandwich where he can say something insulting in a not-totally-aggressive way and with a smile then sandwich it between normal conversation to make you think wait... did he just insult me or did i hallucinate it? maybe he just doesn't realise how he's coming across because of his upbringing? yeah

also to tack onto all this he is a very efficient guy and a proud workaholic ( also thanks to his ocpd ) so you'll see in interactions with him that he tends to move rather fast and speak rather direct and just operates at practically 2x speed! very much a say something useful or don't say anything at all type of person and he can be rather dismissive if he feels the conversation is not going to be fruitful within the first few sentences

also re: his ocpd things have to exist in a certain order and he expects a level of perfectionism always and there's a certain set of rules that you may need to learn especially if you're interacting with him frequently ( applies more to people who live and work with him )

all of this is about work but of course jeongho does lighten up from time to time! he has a group of friends who honestly it's questionable if they like him or his status but i imagine jeongho's life is something like the truman show where you have so much power that people are often pandering to you and you just think everyone is like that cause you're great when in reality they want something from you! but point is he does hang out and drink and fuck a lot and he's uhm certainly not loyal to his wife so there's that! will say though that he is very picky about the company he keeps and the people who know the "real" him

Sorry if this sounds a bit dumb, but what is Claus’s relationship with Porky in your Intermission AU? How do they view each other and how did they stand and how are they currently standing with each other. I read that part of the fic where Porky goes to Ness and Paula’s apartment and made a scene there and it feels like that’s where Claus is done with him and their. “Friendship”

Aw, man, these two are an absolute trainwreck! Claus n' Porky's relationship was one of the things that sparked the whole AU, truth be told. This premise of taking fantastical events from the games, and translating them into grounded experiences young people often go through irl... What if instead of Porky converting Claus into a brainwashed cyborg supersoldier, the whole thing was literally just an abusive friendship? That's basically the first fic in a nutshell. The more I wrote and thought about it though, the more intricate and sad and harrowing it got. I have so much rattling around in my head about these two, and it's been oozing out of my ears like Cheez Whiz for a year and a half 🫠. I'll put the charcuterie board below the cut:

Intermission Claus and Porky have a lot more in common than you'd expect (I think this is true in canon, too, but that's a whole other post). They were both outta place college freshmen, masking their insecurities with overconfident edgelord personas. They shared a lot of the same interests (video games, Reddit, misinterpreting messages about toxic masculinity in Berserk and Fight Club). They've got a lot of similar baggage, worst of all. Broken families, woes over their emotionally unavailable fathers, mental health problems that sometimes alienate them from their loved ones… Porky appealed to Claus' broken ego, making this guilt-ridden once-neglected kid feel exclusively cool and smart and valued. Porky, an always-neglected kid (with no fucking friends), absolutely relished Claus' earnest company and undivided attention. You'd almost think it could've been good for them. Havin' a mutual confidant to vent their frustrations to, bonding through genuine solidarity. But since Porky is Porky, he doesn't know how to maintain friendships without being a possessive megalomaniac about it. And since Claus is naive and impressionable by nature, he fell for it hook line n' sinker.

He coaxed Claus away from his other friends. Gradually got this dude parroting his vernacular and his bullheaded attitude. Which, of course, made Ness n' pals less willing to put up with Claus. "You're practically my double," Porky might've joked. N' Claus wouldda laughed it up, mistaking it for praise. Porky takes advantage of Claus' emotional volatility. He can rile him up into tirades, or flip him into horrific dissociative states, at a moment's notice. Instead of cybernetic mind-control, it's all the weird ways abusers isolate victims, and re-wire their personality and behavior. Most abusers don't exactly do this stuff consciously - and it's obviously just as unacceptable whether it's conscious or not - but I kinda wanna leave Porky's manipulation up to reader interpretation. Is he delicately pulling strings like a puppetmaster, here? Does he think that's what he's doing? Or is he blindly channeling his parents' behavior, since it's all he's ever known? Maybe all of the above…

There's all these miserable layers to it, like?? How Porky's vendetta against Ness provoked the whole thing. (He drove his first and last best friend away in middle school, never got over it, and now is out to spite him by hoarding their lovable fun upstanding mutual college acquaintance.) How Claus is still frantically trying to emulate his father's masculinity at this stage, and how that's leading him down a dangerous path with Porky. (Trying his very best to forgive a now-reformed Flint for 3 years of griefstricken alcoholic absence - while Porky throws a wrench in his efforts, stoking his righteous anger to keep him bitter and isolated.) How Porky emulates Aloysius almost inevitably, despite hating his father's guts, 'cause after torching his friendship with Ness he was left with no other role models. How Claus yearns for acceptance and approval, and gets this twisted version of it from a guy who treats him like an action figure. How Porky's secretly vehemently jealous of Claus' tight bond with Lucas - 'cause he himself has been self-sabotaging his relationship with Picky for years. How Claus put up with being taken advantage of and dehumanized, 'cause his self esteem is so terrible - but the last straw for him was seeing Porky treat Picky like shit. 'Cause he'd never in a million years even dream of treating Lucas like that. Forgive me if it's a lot, but every bit of it makes me feel like [this].

In the aftermath of it all, I think Porky does realize (deep, deep, deep down) he's ruined what couldda been a really positive friendship for the both of 'em. And he does feel deliriously guilty about it. But he never admits fault. Just blames Ness n' Lucas n' Paula, resigns to hate Claus forevermore, and stews about it endlessly. Even though he knows all it's accomplishing is making him more lonesome and miserable. His Peter-Pan-esque immortal childhood, in Intermission AU, is deconstructed into this sad sick shell of a guy who simply refuses to grow up. (Or confront his guilt, or mature as a person, or apologize to anyone, etc etc…) And his "Absolutely Safe Capsule" is really is just his self-inflicted friendlessness. Maybe he resigns himself to it. If he doesn't have any friends, no one can "betray" him anymore. And he won't have to hurt like this ever again 🥲

Claus, on the other hand, walks away with this erratic mix of anger and pity towards Porky. Which often turns inward - blaming himself for getting so sucked into it, for bein' such a d-bag to his own friends & brother under Porky's influence. Graciously now he's got several absolute real ones he can talk to about it. He ultimately ends up pinning most of the blame on Aloysius (who kinda lives rent free in his head, even though they only met once). But regardless, he can barely stand to think much about Porky. Much less to be in a room with him. Which is a shame, considering they've got at least 2 more years at the same college. I might do more with 'em in the future.

If anyone's interested in these two - aside from Intermission (the fic) (the first one), there's more Claus n' Porky woes in Hunker. Especially [Chapter 20] (which can be read as a oneshot 😉🤐).

been meaning to ramble about it but I have way too many thoughts and they keep getting scattered– but my personal theory for majima’s mysterious upbringing is that, rather than being another orphan or born into destitution or into a crime family or what have you like most prominent ykz characters, I think it’d make sense that majima was born into a comparatively bizarrely “normal” family and status–

with two parents who worked average, likely upper-middle class jobs (probably businesspeople/salarymen), grew up in a higher end neighborhood, went to schools with good reputations and pretty high standards and graduated, probably was expected to go into college soon after, etc. but of course looks can be deceiving and “normal” nuclear families can be just as dysfunctional and horrible as any other, if not more so– in this hypothetical, he’d have been physically and/or emotionally neglected, abused, put under harsh traditional expectations– any combination of those things, who knows. whatever happened behind closed doors, I don’t think it would’ve been a comfortable and happy environment to say the least, leading to that part of his life ending abruptly upon getting kicked out or running away as a result of a particularly cruel, volatile confrontation with a parent for one reason or another.

so what would a “seen not heard” kind of kid brought up in a deeply conventional, expectation and reputation centered household want most after finding himself with actual free will for the first time in his life? id imagine it’d make sense to want to become the opposite of everything you were brought up to be, and to want to cut loose, seeking out whatever it takes for no one to ever want to fuck with you again. whether it be through stumbling into saejima first, or being snatched up by shimano on the street in some way, or whatever– I think to a young and traumatized and freshly-on-his-own majima, becoming a yakuza would, in theory, be the peak of rebelliousness and self-preservation. he cuts all ties to his past, and even goes so far as to put on a kansai accent to sell his completely new self and distance himself from the old. to a kid like that, shimano would look like the primo unfuckwithable force of nature who does whatever he wants however he wants whenever he wants, and he’d want nothing more than to follow and emulate that early on. of course, that’d end up backfiring and shimano would use his naïveté to his advantage, basically just ending up being younger majima’s second controlling and abusive father figure, but he wouldn’t really come to terms with that until the incident in 1985– wouldn’t completely come to terms with it until even later than that.

it’d make a lot of sense too as to why he’d never mention anything whatsoever about his background; a lot of characters feel strongly about orphans and street kids because they remind them of themselves and can relate, often offering them wisdom or projecting onto them when the situation calls for it. majima never does this, and never has any particularly strong position whenever these topics come up, and I think it’s because, more often than not, he can’t relate. it’s a mark of pride of sorts amongst alot of his peers to have grown up rough and clawed their way out of destitution through the yakuza– so it’d alienate and belittle him and his hardships for those same people to hear that he came from relative wealth and supposed stability. better to pretend that part of his life never even happened– conveniently he wishes it hadn’t anyway, so it’s a win-win.

anyway so. there’s my ridiculous conspiracy theory about majima in a nutshell. as simply put as possible. i can explain my reasoning for why I think he was raised in a higher socioeconomic class than most of the others in a follow-up if necessary cause I definitely have my reasons.

I've decided to explain what's been going on with me for the last few months. I figured I owe it to my mutuals since it's definitely going to affect my behavior going forward. I feel it's fair to say something now and maybe even apologize in advance.

In a nutshell: My best friend of 12 years ghosted (me and only me) for people he just met, destroying our relationship. In a coconut shell: One of the most important people in my life allowed our relationship to not just stagnate but actively die, willingly and knowingly breaking our social contract and my boundaries in favor of the adoration and attention from strangers and newer, fresher friends. The fallout sent me into a several months-long spiral that regressed my mental and physical health and led to the relapse of my most self-destructive addictions.

The full story, abridged (if you can believe it):

1/? CW, mentions of child abuse, drug use, mental health.

For clarity's sake, I'll be referring to him as 'Bestie'.

In the hierarchy of closeness, Bestie was right under my husband. Our relationship was 100% platonic but emotionally watertight. We had our disagreements like any pals would, but for the most part, we were siblings. We'd gone on vacations. We'd cooked meals together. We hung out for hours and hours over the many years of our friendship. It's safe to say that he was the closest thing I've ever had to an actual brother. …Because my real one totally sucks ass. I don't have a good relationship with my family. At. All. The majority of our interactions are made out of obligation. It was my dad's literal dying wish to at least try and reconcile with my mother after a lifetime of drugs and abuse. I've been trying my hardest, but dear God she makes it hard sometimes. My sister is alright, I tend to keep her at arm's length because she's a control freak (eldest daughter syndrome + history of abuse) but to say that my relationship with my brother is antagonistic would be a massive understatement. I usually say 'We don't get along' and keep it at that, but it goes deeper. We barely tolerate each other… for reasons I can't understand. I was born dead last in my family, the next oldest sibling is 13 years my senior. Despite the age gap, I may as well have been born the middle child, because bro didn't give up his youngest spot. Both he and my mother show signs of classic narcissism.

You may be thinking to yourself, "Crow, not everyone you dislike is a narc just because your personalities clash~' Save it, please. Don't speak on what you don't know. My mother and brother are a classic narcissistic binary star system. Mother and her golden child. They revolve around each other in a borderline emotionally incestuous way. They do drugs together. She coddles him to an insane degree. He did not move out or get his first job until his 40s. Mom didn't parent me so much as she let me live in her house so she could collect a check from my dad. When I wasn't being actively abused by her husband (won't go into detail here, but know that he was my primary abuser, as he was also her abuser and to a lesser extent my sister's) I was almost always being actively neglected, sometimes in favor of brother. Like, locked out of/into rooms or told to go away whenever she didn't need me for something. Especially in my formative years (age 5-10), when mom was still shooting dope and leaving me alone for days at a time or bringing me around the men she'd shoot up with. I almost lost her to drug-related violence and she almost lost me to the state a couple of times. Eventually, she found a way to have her cake (me, child support check generator) and eat it too (heroin and crack). While she gained sobriety from hard drugs just before I entered middle school, the neglect and other forms of abuse persisted through the remainder of my childhood, until I enlisted in the military out of desperation.

So with all of that boo hoo hoo shit out of the way, it's safe to say that I have a bit of a -thing- surrounding abandonment.

Just had a thought rewatching Pyrrha and Mercury’s fight that another reason Merc forfeited could’ve been the risk that Pyrrha would discover that it wasn’t just his legs that were robotic? And in that vein, maybe even subconsciously fear of her semblance and what it could do to him?

Hello anon!

I mean, I think consciously Merc forfeits because he has discovered Pyrrha's semblance and doesn't want to reveal too much about his own abilities...

However, I think the scene and Mercury's attitude towards winning and losing has a lot of subtext. I have commented on it in several posts, like these two.

MERCURY AND PYRRHA

Personally, I think Pyrrha has left an impression on Mercury, even if he doesn't show it. Specifically, I agree with you. Her semblance is a bad match up for Merc both on a practical and on a psychological level.

From a practical point of view, Pyrrha can win against Mercury just with her semblance. From a psychological point of view, Pyrrha can strip Mercury from his legs and coping mechanism, all at once. Mercury needs to believe Marcus's abuse has somehow made him stronger. It gave him mechanical legs (his triumph card) and strengthened his fighting abilities. Well, Pyrrha's fighting technique is top notch and she can take away Mercury's weapon. Surely, this isn't something that makes Mercury happy :P

In my opinion, Mercury's dialogue with Cinder later on kind of gives away his feelings over Pyrrha.

Cinder: Ah, the invincible girl. Mercury: She's smart, but I wouldn't say invincible.

First of all, he immediately refuses Pyrrha's nickname and tries to debunk it. Secondly, he looks for reassurance that Cinder (aka his authority/parental figure) can deal with her for him:

Mercury: You should be able to take her no problem.

And Cinder's answer summarizes their shared mentality:

Cinder: It's not about overpowering the enemy. It's about taking away what power they have. And we will, in time.

Why evolving yourself if you can take away others' powers? Why struggling to grow if you can just drag others down to your level?

This is Marcus's teaching in a nut-shell. And isn't it interesting Cinder's wording references the idea of "taking away people's powers", when Marcus stole Mercury's semblance?

WINNING AND LOSING

All of this brings to Mercury's twisted vision of winning and losing. In a nutshell, the importance isn't to win, but not to lose or to make the other lose.

Consider Mercury's major fights at Beacon... with the exception of the Vytal Festival first 2 rounds, he basically never wins, but also never really loses.

He fights Pyrrha, but forfeits before the fight gets real and it is discovered who is the best fighter. He technically loses, but it doesn't matter because he succeeds at finding useful info.

He fights Yang, but doesn't really have to worry about winning because the plan is for him to throw the match. So, he isn't really forced to give his best in order to win. That is "dumb", while manipulating things from behind the scenes is "cooler". Again, Mercury loses, but in the end he accomplishes what he must. And delivers a worse humiliation/setback to Yang.

He fights Ruby and there is not a clear resolution to their fight. However, once again Mercury manages to stall his opponent, so that things work out according to plan. He doesn't hurt Ruby, but by the end she is left crying and desperate.

Throughout the first volumes Mercury either fights opponents he can easily defeat (the panther faunus, Coco and Yatsuhashi) or faces stronger opponents with the sole purpose of dragging them down. The objective is not to lose or to make the other lose, never to win. This protects Mercury's ego, but ends up being damaging in the long run because it doesn't let Mercury face his shortcomings. Hence the moment he really fails (aka Heaven), he reacts with frustration in a way, which is almost childish. Still, this is exactly the point. Deep down, Mercury is a child, whose growth has been stunted by abuse and violence. So, he needs to believe others are just as frail and breakable as he is to get going.

Thank you for the ask!

It sounds less like LO was abused as a teenager and more like she was an absolute hellspawn to deal with. The type that lies and sneaks out all the time, then is shocked when their parents don't trust them and try to get a tighter leash on them.

again, just because on account of both her siblings stating that their household was abusive i have to assume that much was true. LO's brother doesn't have her sister on the highest of regards and he still admits that she went through abuse both at home and school (curious as to why LO never speaks about that? the only bullying she talks are about adults, never a single story about classmates except when she's giving them tampons or drugs). the idea that all three siblings, who don't keep contact with each other and have no fond memories of each other, just made that part up about their childhood doesn't hold up. how that abuse was or how LO actually reacted to it will always be unknown. what we do know for absolute certain is that LO has done zero work since then so she doesn't fall into abusive patterns of behavior herself. imposing her rules, that aren't even made clear, to then give unfair punishment at the slightest disobedience? sounds like LO yelling at Opal all over again. or bringing an airhorn so everyone's ears can bleed when a random person makes a question that bothers her. or dropping Cypher the moment she argued her headcanons about Sylvanas weren't canon. lack of respect for basic boundaries? everything to do with Lizzy and Brittany's stories. being prone to anger at minimal provocation... or no provocation at all? too many examples to list. never aknowledge any responsability for the harm that she inflicts onto other people and always blaming them instead? that's LO in a nutshell. regardless of what happened on her past... that was the past. whether all those stories are lies or not, the LO we have right now is a predatory abusive person that has hurt a lot of people and will continue to do so until she can't do it anymore. unless she somehow decides to get actual therapy to really get help and i don't see that happening any time soon.

Anti-Marius arguments in a nutshell:

"what will the straights (homophobes) will think" + "queer childhood is being tainted" + Jeffrey Dahmer.

It's 6:51 am and I had to read that about twenty times to have it settle in. Ilu Anon

I think it's especially poignant your remark about queer childhood being ruined because it addresses a brand new segment of society; queer childhood has never really existed before, at least not in any acceptable manner. There have always been people who've known they are queer young, of course, but not who have been able to be out about it and speak about it. Multiple generations of queer people have grown up reading Anne Rice and seeing something special in her work they relate to, but now suddenly we have to protect the poor baby tenderqueers from the vampire romance fiction?

It's not only self infantalizing but it's infantalizing to the entire queer community. "Oh my poor delicate bi sensibilities can't handle this romance between a minor and adult in 1497". K don't read it then. Don't go on about how it's endangering children when by children you mean teenagers who have full access to tagging, rating systems, and the internet. Stop treating youth, especially queer youth, like babies. If you wanna be a smol sad pwecious gay bean news at 11, go for it, but don't wail Think Of The Children about it.

Also lol at the Dahmer ref. Yup, they have to full on make shit up about Marius (they NEVER get Armand's age right for example) to make him look as bad as they want him to look. Or they have to pathologize him somehow, making him the abusive parent in a narcissist family dynamic because if you wave some psycho mumbo jumbo at it and armchair diagnose a fictional character then you give fake legitimacy to your hate.

As an aside Evan Peters in Dahmer was fucking amazing and he would have made an AMAZING Daniel. I mourn.

That parent post was my mom in a nutshell. She would meticulously pick through my backpack, go through my artwork and journals, snoop in my room, and so on. I got good grades and had never once been in trouble at school but she still treated me like I had something to hide it was creepy. Like she never trusted me and I'll never know why. Trying to talk to mothers about the shit they did is talking to a self righteous brick wall too

my mom sexualized me since i was around 4, so she had her fingers in everything and consistently searched around (1) family laptop for “proof” i was a lying whore my entire entire childhood. when she found my fanfic account at 16, she told my older sister who gave her the sage advice to get me treated for a sex addiction bc i was “obviously addicted”. she wouldn’t let me get a job well into adulthood by threatening and manipulating me in order to keep me at home so she could always know what i was as doing. it was a miracle she didn’t go through my phone.

parents are always like “you don’t know what it’s like unless you have kids!” like it’s an excuse, and my response is always, I don’t need to be because I was in fact a former child and I haven’t forgotten how it felt. in fact, remembering my entire childhood is why I’m mentally ill and will be for the rest of my life. like, WHY would i listen to parents about how to parent a kid when former children all say that parenting method is abusive and ruined their lives? it’s like those dating coaches who say you shouldn’t ask a fish how to catch fish, ask a fisherman. it makes no sense to me.