going to group exposure therapy at 13 didnt fuck me up but i have trouble explaining this to people. like okay yeah it was literally me and these other kids sitting at a table instructed to intentionally trigger one another and not help the triggered individual deal with the severe emotional response we caused and yeah there was a screaming room which was just sort of a little sectioned-off area with no door where this one kid in the other group went in and screamed for the entire duration of every session and like YEAH. i did make my longest-lasting friend there who i love dearly but for like two years we had no idea how to speak with one another in a situation not based around triggering one another bc that was how we became friends so every time we hung out i’d be like “you should tell that cashier to fuck off and not apologize” and shed be like “okay well i will not do that but god probably is like super mad at you right now” and separately we’d both be like i am being such a good friend to my bestie with ocd right now. but im saying that was all literally normal you just had to be there
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richard's relationship with money is so interesting to me despite/because of how vague and nonspecific it is in canon. which only makes sense because the show isn't interested in richard's backstory at ALL and, it being an audio medium, it can't exactly give many context clues like wardrobe/style or what his apartment/house looks like. but it's like......... he doesn't have interests, he dabbles in money-making activities. i am practically forced to assume that his mention of being good at pool also = a side hustle. his estranged dad up and left him a house and a paid ride to college. at this point he's way better off than he's ever been -- after 18 years of living with two separate conmen and a mother who doesn't care about him in mediocre apartments, he's suddenly on his own with his future out in front of him, and....... he STILL takes very risky grade-changing jobs for money? like he bypasses getting a regular college job and goes straight to petty crime? and apparently "far worse" crimes??? it's such an interesting balance between craving the security of Having Money and being pathologically unable to get it in a "normal" "safe" way. he doesn't even do anything with it in canon, he just GETS it. he isn't even buying lucy's drinks himself!!!! obviously even richard has bills to pay (which is. very funny to me. sorry that i think 19-year-old college era richard is the funniest person to ever exist, gremlin who's only ever lived in an apartment with his mother, sister, and mother's rotating cast of boyfriends, suddenly has a whole ass house dumped in his lap on his 18th birthday in exchange for his whole ass father's wholesale abandonment of him, has to figure out how to pay utility bills on his own, maybe thinks about getting a barista job or whatever kids did in the 80s, record shop clerk job?? and then nopes past it and picks "exploiting a child genius" as a career path instead. what a fucking legend. i also think he murdered people for money a couple times but that's just me) sorry i've lost the plot of this post thinking about campbell county community college computers richard. imagine being the people at the 5 Cs in charge of hiring STUDENT COUNSELORS and seeing richard maxwell strut into his interview and thinking "yes this 18-year-old suspiciously home-owning kid who talks like a john hughes movie antagonist and is currently his kid sister's very much illegal guardian is the perfect fit for our emotionally and socially fragile 11-year-old resident genius. what could go wrong" and then they have to pay for nicholas adamsworth's therapy sessions for the next 5 years because richard maxwell was what could go wrong. fuck. "waylaid in the windy city" maybe be my personal favorite richard but pre- and mid-"eugene's dilemma" richard is definitely the weirdest and funniest
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gotta get all my LINCOLN thoughts DOWN while im relistening to this godforsaken podcast. here's just some stupid observations that i wrote a whole thesis about for no reason
here's two things we know:
- lincoln was raised to always be honest about his feelings
-- despite this, we consistently see lincoln distracting himself whenever big, hard feelings come up
after the grant sauce scene outside the classroom in episode 7, lincoln doesn't take the time to process anything that his father has said to him. he asks normal if HES doing okay after the conversation with Sparrow, and then immediately changes the subject and tells everyone that they should ditch school and go to Sonics so that he wouldn't have to think about it.
and hey, that's all fair; that was some heavy shit to lay on a teenager, and he'd need a lot of time to process it, but we see Linc consistently choosing not to process it.
later, during the grant arc on earth, linc chooses to drive specifically because it's easier not to think when he's driving. when he leaves a voicemail to Marco telling him that he might never talk to him again, a really hard conversation for linc to have, linc ends the phonecall saying, 'no, this was a bad idea, everything's fine-- prank!'
(and it's not fair to say that linc telling scary that they should look for her stepdad first is also evidence that linc does this when part of it was a structural thing to mimic season 1's anchor order, but it IS consistent with linc avoiding hard emotions)
and all of this isn't even inconsistent with him being raised to always be honest! linc never had to deal with big, hard emotions like this, he's only ever been super sheltered and homeschooled and safe. if linc ever felt lonely or bad, his dads would find a way to accommodate him through some form of enrichment, and if the enrichment didn't help, matts made it clear that lincoln's favorite time of the day is when he can just be alone in his room in the space under his bed where it's calm and peaceful and he doesn't have to think about anything. linc is honest about his feelings up until they become so complicated or painful that he doesn't know how to be honest about them. linc is extremely blunt up until he doesn't know how to think about his feelings without getting hurt
grant talks about how he worries linc's relationship with soccer is an emotional distraction. he worries that linc is using soccer the way grant used violence to shut down his thoughts. and sure, linc genuinely loves soccer, it's a harmless interest to have (especially when you don't have the opportunity to have many other hobbies), but Grant recognizes that linc is using it as an emotional crutch-- or at the very least worries that that's what he's doing.
and thats the one thing that grant cant really explain to linc as a parent! if grant stops him from playing soccer JUST because he's worried, he'd have to explain WHY he's worried, and grant cant really do that. he can't talk about how much he likes killing people around his son if he isnt sauced.
and with the main big, scary emotion that lincoln faced in his backstory being mr. kicks, i'd bet lincoln dealt with that feeling by doing a lot of the same. distracting himself with soccer or zoning out entirely. i'd bet grant watched linc avoid any and all discussion about mr. kicks and instead focus on getting better at soccer. there's no way to prove that, but it's consistent with matt's character choices.
so here linc is, going through puberty, spiraling into apathy and avoidance and being like WHATEVER and WHO CARES to everything. this most recent episode was the biggest change in his character yet; he gave up soccer, said it was a waste of time, and broke that goddamn pick.
he doesn't really NEED soccer anymore now that he's learned that he doesn't need an excuse to be dismissive or avoidant anymore; he can just do it. he can just say whatever now. he can just brush people off. he can be abrasive and distant, just like scary.
and it's sad because man, he did really love soccer, even when he was using it for the wrong reasons. he really did love his family and friends. he had the strongest values and the strongest moral compass and he really, really believed in being a good person. but now he's having to deal with big, scary emotions for the first time, and he has no way to know how to deal with them, even with all the therapy his dads gave him. agughghhghghg lincoln li wilson
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